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Wednesday served as a culmination of over a decade of hard work for Chase Mosley and his father, Charles. The sophomore infielder helped lead the Troup High baseball team to its first-ever state championship alongside a very special assistant coach, his old man.

“These last few days have been so crazy,” Charles said. “I don’t think either of us has stopped smiling.”

This baseball journey for the Mosleys started when Chase was a tyke. When Chase saw his older brother grabbing a bat and glove and heading to the ball field, he was right in line, following suit.

“Any time me and his older brother would go to the park to work on something, [Chase] would ask to come along too,” Charles said. “He was always around the game at such a young age.”

Little did they know at the time, but in a few short years, they would rewrite Troup High School history together.

Charles was the first baseball coach Chase ever knew. From parks and rec to all-star to travel ball teams, Charles was always in Chase’s corner, even if he was a bit harder on Chase than the rest of the players over the years.

“It’s good and bad having him as a coach,” Chase said as the two shared a laugh. “He can be really tough on me, but I know it’s because he wants the best for me at the end of the day.

“I would definitely say he’s harder on me than anybody else,” he said, flashing a big grin. 

Chase does say that his dad has softened a little bit on him as a coach.

Chase is far from the only Tiger on the team Charles had coached in some form or fashion over the years outside of Troup High.

Seven members of the 2021 Little League World Series team started for the Tigers in the state championship series. That team was led by Charles, who has helped shape and mold this Troup High baseball team for years, without even realizing it.

“Winning the World Series was pretty cool, and I did think about all these kids ending up on the same high school team, but never did I envision that they would win the state championship,” Charles said. “I think we would have been satisfied with just the World Series.”

“I’ve been playing ball with some of these guys for almost my whole life,” Chase added. “We dreamed of winning a state championship here, so to actually do it is pretty special.”

To get to a state championship, Chase and the team faced their fair share of adversity this season. The Tigers started the season 6-6, and many may have written them off. Not the guys that shared the dugout, they locked in after a tough 3-2 loss to Trinity Christian early in the season.

“A lot of people were upset after that game, there were a lot of emotions, which happens when you are a family like we are,” Charles said of the Troup baseball team. “Coach (Tanner) Glisson sat everybody down, we talked about it, and started to have devotionals before every game, and it really started to click from there.”

Chase went into the season expecting to rarely be in the pitching rotation. That changed when Carson Walker, the team’s no. 3 pitcher suffered an injury that took him out of the pitching lineup. In stepped Mosley, who started game three of the state semifinals and game two of the state championship series.

“It wasn’t hard, but I did have to get into a pitcher’s mindset, especially in those games we had to win,” Chase said. “Coach (Brock) Barber really got me prepared to pitch in those big games.”

The reality of being state champions is still sinking in for the Mosleys. On Wednesday, it took Chase even longer than most to realize the final out was in fact the final out.

“I just started jogging off the field like we still had more to play,” Chase said. “Once I saw everybody running out of the dugout, I realized we had just won a state championship.”

When Chase realized it was the final out, he joined the dogpile that the Tigers formed just off first base. After the dogpile dispersed, Chase found Charles and the two shared a warm embrace.

“We hugged each other for what felt like minutes and kept telling each other ‘I can’t believe we did it,’” Charles said. “It was special and something I will never forget.”