In the game with Alliance Christian senior Joe riggs

PORTSMOUTH

Final inning of a championship game. Tie score. Winning run at third. Joe Riggs at the plate.

"Pretty much the situation I'd been dreaming about as long as I'd been playing baseball," the Alliance Christian third baseman/catcher said of his pivotal at-bat in the 2008 Virginia Independent Schools Division III state title game.

Ironically, the game to that point had been something of a nightmare for Riggs, who made a pair of errors at third. But after his seventh-inning at-bat, no one's going to remember those.

Despite the stakes, Riggs played it cool and worked the count full. Then he stroked a flare to right field, deep enough to score Cory Nelson with the championship-clinching run.

"As soon as Cory slid across the plate, I threw my helmet in the air," Riggs said. "Then I hugged the first-base coach (L.A. Scott). And then I just jumped on the dog pile at the pitcher's mound."

Later that night, the Falcons went to dinner to celebrate the achievement, which was Riggs' first state title but the Falcons' fifth since 1998.

And then, Riggs figured it was over.

"I always thought that when you won it all, you were happy about it for a while, and that was that," he said.

But that was before the Portsmouth Sports Club honored the team at a luncheon. And before Portsmouth Mayor James Holley declared "Alliance Christian Baseball Week" and feted the squad with a certificate acknowledging the success.

Then the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame got involved. A picture of the team hangs on a wall on the second floor of the museum.

And then there's the ring. Riggs proudly extended his right hand and flashed a $600 bauble topped by a script "A" nestled in a bed of jewels. Riggs has a class ring, and another from his days on a Deep Creek AAU select team after a tournament in Cooperstown, N.Y.

"But this ring is the best of all," he said.

Now a senior, Riggs has emerged as one of the leaders of the 2009 Falcons. After coach David Mitchell addressed the squad early in the preseason, Riggs said he pulled the players together to remind them of what it will take to author another championship season.

"I can do that because last year I experienced it first-hand," Riggs said. "Even now, not a day goes by when we don't talk about winning the state title and remember what it took to get it. I know it seems like a long time ago, but that feeling is still alive in all of us."

Just like a dream.