5A Baseball: North Lincoln sweeps Seaforth to repeat as state champions

BURLINGTON, N.C. — Channeling some of last year’s state championship closing energy, North Lincoln found a way to be persistent and find their opportunity to strike.

Unlike the run-rule win over Seaforth in game one of the N.C. High School Athletic Association 5A baseball state championship series, the title-securing win Thursday in Burlington came a little more deliberately.

“We had to stay locked in with energy throughout all seven innings that we played,” North Lincoln senior infielder Cason McGinnis said. “(Repeating as state champion) is a feeling that not many high schoolers get to feel. We knew coming in that after we won that South Point series, the winner of that game was going to win the state championship. We had a lot of confidence coming in, and we executed very well.”

North Lincoln repeated as state champions with an 8-3 win over Seaforth because of their ability to strike when the time was right.

“We had a lot of returners, and they’ve seen this movie before. It helps when you know what it takes, and you know that it is possible. They set out from day one back in August to come back and do it again,” North Lincoln coach Charlie Goss said. “Not to see how far they could get, but to do it again. They knew they had the ability to do it because they had already done it.”

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North Lincoln (20-3) won the last two games of the state championship series a year ago by a 2-0 and 1-0 score.

Seaforth’s (21-11) magical run came to a halt, facing Knights’ pitcher Parker Williams, who tossed a gem with four strikeouts and one hit allowed in six innings.

“Bryson Schmidt and Parker Williams threw their absolute butts off in this series this week to put us in a position to win,” Goss said. “They toted the rock for us.”

The Hawks were the No. 9 seed in the 5A East bracket, but coach Spenser Messmore said his team came in battle-tested following close losses on a tough slate in the regular season. Their RPI reflected that, with the third-highest opponents’ win percentage in the 5A classification.

“I feel like the Cinderella phrase was something we used because we didn’t feel like that. We felt like we put a schedule together and had the talent to be a top seed, but we just happened to be a No. 9 seed,” Messmore said. “We used that as motivation, as a way to fly under the radar just a little bit. It was always a goal and an expectation to get to this point in the season.”

• View Photos: Seaforth vs. North Lincoln, Game 2 (May 28, 2026). HSOT Insiders can download championship photos for free. Here's how.

North Lincoln took the chance with Williams rolling in the middle innings to pounce on Hawks’ starter Jaedyn Rader in the fourth and fifth innings.

Beckett Rinkus had an RBI base hit in the fifth inning, and McGinnis drove in a run with a double in the sixth inning to push the Knights’ advantage to 6-0. Rinkus’ RBI double in the top of the seventh, followed by a score on a groundout, delivered the finishing blow to the Hawks.

McGinnis repeated as the state championship series most valuable player. The senior shortstop bound for UNC Wilmington had two hits Wednesday, and he added two RBIs in the second game, along with anchoring the middle infield.

“We just had to play good baseball. I made the plays when I was supposed to and got some hits when I was supposed to. We came out and got the win, and it felt good to get MVP back-to-back,” McGinnis said.

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McGinnis will graduate in the coming days, but Goss wants the program to play up to fill his production.

“If he’s in the box, if he’s in the field, or if he’s on the mound, we want the ball in his hands or the ball hit somewhere near him,” Goss said. “He just has that confidence, and he carries himself like a veteran since the beginning. … We are really going to miss him because there are not a lot of kids like him out there.”

In the mass of North Lincoln fans in the stands as the Knights celebrated with the state title trophy on the field, there was a sign overlooking the players that said: “Tradition doesn’t graduate.”

“That’s the first I’ve heard that one, but it makes a lot of sense,” Goss said. “We want all these young guys to know what it takes and to experience this so they can come back and do it again.”

Cole Nemire’s RBI single with two outs in the second inning got the Knights going offensively.

Seaforth battled with runners in scoring position twice in the top of the third, and Rader got punchouts to keep runs off the board.

The Knights were threatening in the top of the fourth, and this time found holes in the defense to grow the lead. Caleb Hancock’s flare into shallow right worked in a run. A wild pitch scored another run to make it 3-0, Knights. Another run scored when Seaforth was unable to turn a double play to get out of the inning.

Nemire, Hancock, Rinkus, and Bryson Summey had two hits each for North Lincoln.

Box Score

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