Fight like a Lion.
Keep on Steppin’.
These were the phrases Mansfield baseball clung to throughout an emotionally draining season.
“That is something that coach (Jones) said a lot. He set these guys down last year and told them ‘I didn’t get the news I was looking for from the doctor, but whatever happens, it is all going to be okay and we are just going to keep right on steppin’,” head coach Gary Greene said.
Jones, a Missouri Sports Hall of Famer and the winningest coach in Missouri high-school history, passed away on Jan. 25 after a year-long battle with brain cancer. It was the first season he wasn’t in the Mansfield dugout since 1988.
Five months and six days later, his Mansfield Lions honored him the only way possible for a man of his stature, by steppin’ all the way to a Class 2 state championship in a 16-3 run-rule win in five innings over Canton.
It was the first title for the program since 1996. The Lions also won a state championship under Jones in 1995.
Mansfield hung three runs on the board in the bottom of the first and two more in the bottom of the second. Canton would respond with a two-run top of the third to gain some momentum.
Instead of letting the tide of the game turn, Mansfield’s offense stood up to it and responded just the way coach Jones would have expected, according to players and coaches.
“When you see what he (coach Jones) went through — and we saw it up close last fall when he wasn’t feeling well — he came to the ballpark every day,” Greene said. “He came to the games every day. There were days he didn’t feel like being there, but he never failed to show up.
“Our guys saw that. We reminded them of that every day that Doug Jones was, first of all, a wonderful human being and a great baseball coach, but he was also a fighter and he was a competitor. These guys fought. They grabbed ahold of that mantra ‘fight like a lion’ and they ran with it.”
The Lions ran to the highest level.
“Our whole team is competitors, but there is us as competitors and then there is Coach Jones, which is above and beyond anybody I have ever seen,” senior Sean Neal said. “In his battle with cancer, he really showed us how to fight.”
That response was a four-run third inning to extend the lead to 9-2 and put the game out of reach.
A seven-run lead would be enough for most teams to step back and relax, but that wasn’t the way Jones taught his boys to play baseball. The game wasn’t over until the final out was recorded.
“We fought every at-bat no matter what the score until he (coach Jones) told us it was enough. If he told us it was enough then that is when we let up, but he never really told us it was enough,” junior Spencer Greene said. “We were relentless every at-bat. He instilled that mentality in us; every game, every at-bat, don’t give up, fight every pitch. That was him. That was Coach Jones.”
The relentless Mansfield offensive attack put up seven runs in the bottom of the fourth to make it 16-2 and put a run-rule win on the table. Spencer Greene came in to relieve Neal, who allowed three runs in four innings. Canton tagged Neal for three in the fifth.
On Spencer Greene’s eighth pitch of the frame, a fly ball to center ended the game and set off a wave of emotions for the players and coaches on the field and the fans in the stands.
“It is bittersweet because we wish he was here physically because I know how much he loved doing this. He was a baseball junkie,” Gary Greene said. “The tears are for him because we wish he was here, but they are also for the fact that we set this goal at the beginning of the year to try and make this happen for his honor. To have that happen is a relief and a joy that I can’t describe.
“This whole season has been more than just a season for us with coach Jones passing. We had to overcome so much this past January losing coach. We have really come together this year,” Neal said. “It was more than just any other baseball season. We all had high goals and we met them this year.”
Even while going through treatments last fall, coach Jones never expected any less from his players. He knew what potential this group had.
And he was right.
“We built up to this starting in the fall when he was there battling cancer,” said Colton Jones, the youngest son of Doug Jones and current assistant coach for the Lions. “He always said we can finish on top. To be there at this game and to finish on top means everything to us. I am so happy. I am so sad. It is a rollercoaster of emotions.”
It seemed like the entire town of Mansfield was crammed into CarShield Field in O’Fallon. Just yet another testament to what Jones built in his time at Mansfield.
“I didn’t realize how big of a legend he was until his passing. What he has built at Mansfield; nobody around has it. We have a great support system. People do things the right way. It is just a great small town U.S.A. that loves their baseball,” Colton Jones said.
Doug Jones’ legacy is one that will endure for generations to come, not only with the Mansfield baseball team, but the in players he mentored and the coaches and people he encountered.
“You can tell what he meant to the town. You can tell what he meant to the community. We have people here that aren’t from Mansfield. We have people here from Seymour, Fordland and other communities and former players,” Spencer Greene said. “That is just him. He left a mark on your life even if you didn’t play for him. He was Mansfield. He was Mansfield baseball and he was Mansfield. That was him.”
