Forsyth County players shine as Georgia Tech wins ACC title game
Forsyth Central alum Alex Hernandez and Collins Hill’s Vahn Lackey put Forsyth County in the middle of Georgia Tech’s ACC title run in Charlotte.
Alex Hernandez and Vahn Lackey carried Forsyth County’s baseball pipeline onto the ACC’s biggest stage as top-seeded Georgia Tech played for the 2026 championship at Truist Field in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hernandez, a Cumming native and Forsyth Central High School product, delivered a three-run home run as the Yellow Jackets pushed through the title game with a roster that had gone 47-9 overall and 25-5 in the ACC.
Georgia Tech entered Sunday’s noon matchup against North Carolina as the No. 1 seed after winning the regular season outright, then moving through the single-elimination tournament. The Yellow Jackets reached the ACC Tournament championship game for the 14th time in program history and the first time since 2019, while chasing their 10th conference tournament crown. Their last ACC tournament title came in 2014, and a win would have made Georgia Tech the first ACC school to sweep the regular season and tournament since North Carolina did it in 2013.
Hernandez’s performance fit the resume he built in Atlanta. The former Forsyth Central standout was the 2025 ACC Freshman of the Year, a first-team Freshman All-America selection and Georgia Tech’s freshman RBI record-holder with 69. His production gave the Jackets another power bat in a lineup that had already rewritten the school record book in 2026.
Lackey, from Suwanee and Collins Hill High School, added another local link to the postseason run. Georgia Tech’s notes described him as one of the top returning American catchers after USA Baseball named him one of two catchers on its Collegiate National Team. He also homered in Georgia Tech’s 9-3 semifinal win over Miami on Saturday, a game that helped the Jackets break their single-season home run record with 123.
That semifinal also underscored how deep Georgia Tech’s offense had become. The Yellow Jackets had scored 603 runs through 56 games, a school record and the most by any Power 4 team through 56 games in the BBCOR era. Georgia Tech also outscored ACC opponents 289-136, the largest run differential in league history at plus-153.
For Forsyth County, Hernandez and Lackey represented more than one afternoon in Charlotte. They showed how local high school programs in Cumming and Suwanee can keep producing players ready for a national stage, from Forsyth Central and Collins Hill to a conference title game watched across the country.
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