They had all the ingredients for championship baseball. An ace pitcher. A Hall of Fame coach. Postseason experience. And, well, a little luck.
Twenty-five years ago, the 1991 West Springfield baseball team rode a deep pitching staff led by Chad Olms and the guidance of coach Ron Tugwell to the second of three straight Group AAA Northern Region championships and the first state championship in school history.
“My team in ‘90 was supposed to be the team that was the powerhouse,” Tugwell said. “We had five Division I guys and we lost in the state semis. But we had a pitcher in [Olms] who was really just maturing. That experience he had in ‘90 carried over to ‘91, and he just blossomed.”
The Spartans would finish 25-3, defeating Gar-Field in the state final, 7-2.
Along the way, they qualified for the state tournament with a 3-0 regional semifinal win over a Chantilly team led by pitcher Dave Carroll, a sixth-round pick of the St. Louis Cardinals two years later in the Major League Baseball Draft. They had the Baseball Gods on their side in the region final, when Brett Steiner scored a walk-off run in the eighth inning on a wild pitch by Jefferson’s Kevin Ford, who would later pitch at the University of Virginia and is now the head coach at Chantilly. The game marked the fifth of eight consecutive regional final appearances by the Spartans.
Of historical note, that regional tournament featured three of the four winningest coaches in Northern Virginia history: W.T. Woodson’s Lee Knupp (388 wins), who had led the Cavaliers to the previous two state titles; Oakton’s Tom Hall (385), whose Cougars were upset by Jefferson in the semifinals; and Tugwell, who would go on to win an area-record 431 games. Washington-Lee’s Del Norwood, who won 420 career games, had retired in 1987.
Olms, who threw a one-hitter to outduel Carroll in regionals, then tossed a three-hitter in the state quarterfinals, a 9-1 win over Potomac. In the semifinals, pinch runner Kevin Simonds - who served as the head baseball coach at Fairfax from 2007-09 and is currently the Rebels’ head football coach - scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch in the sixth inning of a 9-8 win over Dinwiddie.
Olms came up big again in the state final against a Gar-Field team that featured future big leaguer Brian McNichol and had banged out 17 hits in a 14-8 semifinal win over First Colonial, limiting the Indians to six hits while striking out nine. With the win, Olms would finish 9-1 on the season.
“In ‘91 we just came together,” Tugwell said. “We played the worst game of the season in the state semifinals, and just happened to win that, and then played an awesome game in the state final.”
The state title was the first of two Tugwell would win at West Springfield, winning again in 1998. The coach led the Spartans to 12 district and six region titles in 29 years, and would retire after the 2000 season. The ‘91 Spartans were one of 13 teams from Northern Virginia to win Group AAA state championships in the 43 years from 1971-2013 the Virginia High School League (VHSL) had its schools divided into three classifications.
The team was paced offensively by Jimmy Francis, who ht .415 and was a first-team All-Met selection by The Post. It also featured future Georgia Tech standout and Atlanta Braves farmhand L.J. Yankosky, who would be named first-team All-Met the following two years and was the All-Met Player of the Year in 1993, and Jeff Hafer, who would later pitch at James Madison University and in the New York Mets’ system. Catcher Mike Henderson (pictured above) played through a torn ligament in his receiving thumb in the state tournament, and later played at Old Dominion University.
Olms, who would later pitch at the College of William & Mary and whose younger brother Jason is the current West Springfield coach, was along with outfielder Jamie Warren named as a second-team All-Met selection. Mark Simon rounded out the Spartans’ outstanding rotation.
“People ask all the time, ‘What’s your formula for winning?’. And I don’t think there is any formula,” Tugwell said. “I think there are certain things that are important, like team chemistry, kids playing together. If you have a superstar or two, where those kids get all the credit, it doesn’t work as well sometimes.
“What’s the quote? ‘It’s not your best nine, but it’s your nine best that win’. And sometimes with these teams that’s really true. And I think that ‘91 team was a really, close-knit group of kids that were just really tough."
Photos courtesy of the Tugwell family
