[5/12/05]

Jeff McClaskey said the last three times his Northwest Rankin baseball team has made the state championship series and lost, it was his fault.

He doesn’t want a fourth installment, forever linking the former Delta State player and Porters Chapel Academy coach with the likes of the Buffalo Bills and Minnesota Vikings: great teams that never won the big one.

The Bills in the early 1990s were the best team in the NFL never to win a Super Bowl. They lost close games, blowouts and every way in between.

On Saturday, the coach of the best team in Mississippi for the past three years will again try to guide his team an elusive state championship.

His Northwest Rankin Cougars defeated previously unbeaten Madison Central in two straight games to reach this weekend’s Class 5A state championship series. The Cougars are scheduled to open the best-of-three series on Saturday against Gulfport at Smith-Wills Stadium in Jackson.

“We’ve gotten there, just haven’t won a championship. That’s my fault,” McClaskey said. “But we have worked hard for 15 years building this program and I think it’s time for us to win one. It could be this year or maybe next.

“I’d like to win one for all the players that have gotten us to this point, for the administration that has been so good to us over the years. It’s been a lot of work.”

McClaskey’s road to four straight state title series began on the fields of Porters Chapel Academy. Fresh out of college, McClaskey roamed the fields at PCA for three seasons, building the foundation of what has become an Academy powerhouse.

After a 17-10 campaign in his first season, he guided the Eagles to a 25-5 record in 1988 and captured the first of two Capital A Conference championships. The 1989 team went 21-11. He left PCA in 1990 and moved to Northwest Rankin the next season.

For 15 years, he’s built a program that plays in an impeccable stadium, wins 20 or 30 games a year and is considered one of the toughest teams to play every year. Coaches know that when they face Northwest Rankin, a battle is in store.

Gulfport, the Cougars’ final opponent, will find that out this week.

The Admirals are a no-quit team that has come back from deficits in nearly every game in the postseason. In two wins over Warren Central in the second round of the playoffs, the Vikings had early leads.

When it’s all said and done, though, this will be McClaskey’s year.

A coach this good, this classy, who has had so much coaching success, deserves this one.

Getting the Cougars to avoid a letdown after such an emotional victory over Madison Central is the only thing standing in their way.

But McClaskey should know better. He’s been here so often, he won’t allow a letdown.

The trophy will be his – finally.