Manchester baseball wins first consecutive SHAC small-school titles
Clayton Colvin’s walk-off hit on May 5 broke a 9-4 tie with Peebles and gave Manchester its first straight SHAC small-school titles.
Manchester’s SHAC small-school championship came down to the rule that matters only when two teams finish on the same number. Manchester and Peebles both closed conference play at 9-4, and the Southern Hills Athletic Conference uses head-to-head results to break a division tie, which sent the title to the Greyhounds after they swept the season series.
The finish was set in motion May 5, when Clayton Colvin delivered a walk-off hit in the bottom of the seventh to beat Peebles 7-6. That win did more than add another mark in the standings. It gave Manchester the edge it needed when the league table settled and turned a late-season rivalry game into the decisive championship result. Manchester had already edged Peebles 6-5 on April 9, completing the two-game sweep that proved decisive when both teams finished with identical records.
The title gave Manchester baseball its first back-to-back conference championships, a milestone for a program that has now won the SHAC small-school crown in consecutive seasons under second-year head coach Trey Meade. Meade’s group had already set the bar a year earlier, when the Greyhounds clinched the 2025 title with a 13-3 win over Fairfield on May 17, 2025. At that point, Manchester was sitting at 11-4 overall and 7-2 in conference play, after surging to first place with an 8-2 league start and a 10-4 overall record.
That 2025 run was built on more than one hot week. Luke Applegate hit .431 with 29 runs and 12 stolen bases, while Thomas Barnhart hit .417 with four home runs and 29 RBI, and both earned first-team All-District honors. Meade was also named Co-Coach of the Year in the Southeast District, a recognition that now fits with a program that has turned consistency into championships.
For Manchester, the 2026 title was not just another banner. It was proof that when the standings tightened and the rulebook called for a tiebreaker, the Greyhounds had already done enough on the field to make the smallest margin count.
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