Senior-laden Titans dominant in winning baseball title in 2000 | Sports

The most-anticipated sporting event in Taylor High School history hadn’t started, and already George Phares pinpointed cause for concern.

Phares, the Titans longtime baseball coach, had his team in the 2000 Class 2A state championship game. He was of the belief his squad was the designated home team against North Montgomery at Victory Field in Indianapolis.

He was eventually informed otherwise.

Seeing his players in the dugout, Phares informed them they would be batting first, listened to their response and was immediately blanketed by calm.

“They said, ‘Coach, don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of business,’” remembers Phares, 74, who led the Titans baseball fortunes from 1977-2007. “And they did.”

In exclamation point fashion, no less.

Taylor scored in five of the seven innings, received a rocket launch of a home run to left-centerfield from senior right fielder Ted Secrease and five-hit pitching performance from senior Brian Collins to handily defeat North Montgomery, 12-1.

It remains the only state championship in Taylor history, individual or team.

“We knew we were good. Some of the seniors had started four straight years,” said Phares, who club finished with a 30-4 record. “Their sophomore year we won our first sectional, lost to Alexandria in the semistate, and they went on to win state. The next year we lost in the first round of the sectional to Lewis Cass.

“Before the 2000 season, we just said, let’s go out and play to our ability and the scoreboard will take care of itself. That’s the way those kids were.”

Brian Collins and his twin brother, third baseman Brad Collins — the latter the older by nine minutes — were mainstays in an experienced lineup that included shortstop Brandon Boles, catcher Joey Keck, Darrin Sims at first base and second baseman Dustin Rodkey.

Kevin Griffin played third if Brad Collins was pitching, while Austin McClain and Craig Denison joined Secrease in the outfield.

Boles provided a highlight during the regular season when he set a national record with a 52-game hitting streak.

Taylor’s postseason began at the Tipton Sectional with an 8-0 blanking of Eastern in the semifinal and an 8-1 decision over Carroll in the championship game. The next step was the Cass Regional where, again, the Titans prevailed by impressive margins, defeating Rensselaer Central, 7-2, in a semifinal, and Frankton, 11-2, in the title contest.

Taylor would go on down Boone Grove, 6-1, in the first of the 2A semifinals at Victory Field with North Montgomery rallying for a 5-4 victory over North Posey in the second game.

By this point, Taylor was riding a tidal wave of momentum, and not about to be stopped.

Brian Collins would eventually add another layer of accomplishment to the Titans’ day by being named the Class 2A recipient of the L.V. Phillips Mental Attitude Award.

The Titans’ memorable run through the state tournament occurred in the third school year of multiclass sports in Indiana. Since then, Northwestern baseball was 2A runner-up in 2005, Kokomo the 4A bridesmaid two years later and Western won the 3A title in 2012 and was runner-up in 2016.

Phares coached his share of outstanding Taylor baseball teams in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, but the program didn’t sample regional competition until class sports became a reality.

Taylor baseball now claims a total of seven sectional championships, the most recent being in 2015. Four of those Titans teams won regional, including the 2011 outfit that lost a heartbreaker to Hanover Central, 4-3, at semistate.

In one respect, the timing was perfect for the 2000 squad. In another, not so much.

According to Brad Collins, that Taylor ball club was built to defeat any school of any size. To this day, Titans players and coaches can’t help but wonder how deep of a run they might have made in the old one-class system.

“For the size of school, we had so many good baseball players. It was kind of out of the ordinary for a school that size,” said Collins. “Our junior year was definitely a disappointment. Things just didn’t go our way.

“It definitely motivated us for our senior year. We knew we were really good and could at least make it to state.”

Once there, the Titans did what great teams do.

They made history.