Despite Lake Travis being the second-ranked team in the state and the 11th in the country, the boys baseball team defeated Lake Travis 2-1.

“It was the best feeling all year,” sophomore Peyton Klam said. “We played a good team game and we needed one more win to clinch playoffs and it was good to get a win against them.”

The Vipers knew it was going to be a tough game so they had to prepare for the matchup.

“During practice, we were all really focused,” senior Grant Prussel said. “We have some practices where we’re all out of it and we’re not all really there, but we really knew what we wanted to accomplish. We were all focused and we stayed together throughout practice and helped each other out.”

Although the Vipers were victorious, there were still some things that Lake Travis did well.

“After the first inning, their pitcher settled down and he threw a pretty good game and kept us off balance,” junior Justin Moore said. “Thankfully, we were able to strike in the first inning and got all the runs we needed.”

Throughout the game, the Vipers outperformed the Cavaliers because of their teamwork.

“We competed as a team,” Prussel said. “I can see on Lake Travis that they have a lot of individuals, but us as a Viper baseball program, we’re all brothers, we’re all together. When we’re out on the field, whether we did good or bad, we were picking each other up, and that was the biggest part in our victory.”

To prepare for the next two games, the Vipers need to improve in some areas.

“We can always improve our hitting,” Moore said. “Our hitting has been really good this year, but we only scored two runs and we need more than two runs to win a ballgame. Hitting and manufacturing runs are things we can improve upon, but I’m pretty happy where we are.”

As a team, this was one of the most important games for the team.

“As a team, we’ve certainly scored more runs and given up less runs,” Moore said. “With such a high pressured game and in a big situation, this was one of our best games in Vandegrift history because we clinched playoffs over a good opponent, Lake Travis.”

This game marked the first time in school history that the Vipers will go to the playoffs and the team was stoked to make their first playoff appearance.

“It’s unexplainable,” Prussel said. “I’ve been a part of a varsity team for three years now and this is my first year making playoffs and first year in school history. Right after that win, I didn’t feel anything, and Coach McGee’s face said it all. I’ve never seen someone as happy as him, and it made my night.”

Throughout the season, Klam said everyone’s personalities clicked, which made the team be so successful.

“We all came in knowing what we wanted to do with the season,” Klam said. “We didn’t want to screw around like past teams, and we wanted to be different, and we are different because we are the first team to make playoffs. That connection that we have; the understanding of the team as a whole that we wanted to make playoffs really helped us.”

In order to go deep in the playoffs, the Vipers must prepare a lot and keep doing what they’re doing.

“We need to stay confident,” Prussel said. “If we have a loss, since we play three game series, we need to step right up and hit them with it. We can’t look down upon each other, and we can’t get sad after having a bad inning or a bad game; we just need to stay confident.”