Mustangs advance in Class 5A state playoffs

NORTHPORT – With a handful of senior leaders and a mission of retribution, Madison Academy set sail on the 2025 baseball season toward the promised land.

There were tested pitchers. There were veterans in the batting order, strong defenders in the field. The recipe for a banner season sat there, waiting to be mixed over the course of a demanding schedule.

Friday night, the Mustangs entered a chapter into the school’s storied athletic history of the 21st century. Those players walked out of the dugout to start a Class 5A state tournament semifinal series against host Tuscaloosa County with history behind them. It was up to them to determine whether they walked back in with more.

Madison Academy won in the opening rounds over tightly challenged series against Douglas, Leeds and Lawrence County. The last series was played away from the Madison Academy campus because of weather, though the Mustangs were hosting.

“Against Lawrence County we played with so much grit,’’ Madison Academy head coach David Pressley said. ‘’(Now), there’s definitely a heightened awareness and excitement and all the things that you just work on staying within yourself and letting all your training, work and  not making it bigger than it has to be.’’

But it’s big. The winner of the best-of-three series between Madison Academy and Tuscaloosa County will play for a state championship. History awaits.