White House takes Class AA by Anthony Coleman Sports Writer for The Tennessean (in Nashville, TN) May 26, 2000 CHATTANOOGA- White House still had a tomorrow, but the Blue Devils didn't feel they had any time to waste. So with one day's rest, after throwing five innings Tuesday, White House's Jared Garshnick pitched White House to its first baseball state championship as the Blue Devils beat defending champion Covington (6-2) last night in the Class AA championship. "If we were going to get beat I thought this team deserved to get beat with our best," White House Coach Tony Long said. "He didn't throw a lot of pitches Tuesday and even though he didn't have good stuff from the first inning he had the mindset, 'I wasn't going to get beat'." Garshnick, who pushed his record to 14-0, struck out nine in his five-hitter that ended with a strikeout of Robert Blankenship. "The adrenaline was going," Garshnick said. "I'd have given my arm for a state championship." The way Garshnick and Covington's Joel Howard were throwing early, with each starting with three shutout innings, it looked like one run would mean a lot. And Covington scored it in the top of the fourth to go up 1-0, but in the bottom of the inning almost anything that could go wrong for the Chargers did. And White House (32-4) capitalized with five runs, giving Garshnick more than enough to finish. "I knew with Garshnick we were going to win, he hasn't lost a game all year," center fielder Rudy Farmer said. "We wanted to end it today, we didn't want to wake up tomorrow and play them again. They are the defending champions and we didn't want to give them another chance. And we were running out of arms." The bottom of the fourth inning started with a walk to Blake Gibbs and a bloop hit by Garshnick. Jared Pickett sacrificed to put runners at second and third followed by a walk to load bases. Ryan Sherrill doubled home two runs, then after a failed squeeze attempt, Chad Hoerner reached on an infield hit to short and Sherrill came into score on a throwing error on the same play. Next a popup right to the mound that looked to end the inning was botched by Covington and two more White House runners scored. Covington got one back in the fifth when Garshnick threw a pickoff throw away to second of Dabney Maxwell, who reached on an infield hit to start the inning. In the sixth Garshnick got in another minor jam, but struck out Bryce Mosely with men on first and second. White House padded its lead in the bottom of the sixth with Matt Elliott knocking in Sherrill. whlib@viafamily.com