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- Updated: April 22, 2025
Brooks pays emotional tribute to brother after Hope Christian sweeps South Choctaw in AISA quarterfinal series, gets fireworks sendoff to semifinals in Montgomery.
Baseball playoff series
CLASS 5A
Second round
Jacksonville at Scottsboro
Friday, 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Saturday, noon (if needed)
CLASS 4A
Second round
Alexandria at Deshler
Friday, 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, noon (if needed)
CLASS 2A
Second round
Ranburne at Cottonwood
Friday, 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, 1 p.m. (if needed)
AISA
Quarterfinals
South Choctaw at Hope Christian
Game 1: Hope Christian wins 10-0
Game 2: Hope Christian wins 8-3, advances
By Joe Medley
East Alabama Sports Writer
OXFORD — A feel-good story writer couldn’t have scripted a better moment for Hope Christian’s inaugural varsity baseball season than the fireworks surprise after the Saints swept their AISA quarterfinal series Tuesday, but Roby Brooks added an emotional touch.
After labeling his first Hope team as “The Fourteen” that laid a foundation, Brooks unveiled his emotional backdrop. As he would saw it, it was more credit where credit was due.
“I’m blessed, and I’m lucky, to have the best coach around in Wes Brooks, my brother,” Roby said, referring to his former Wellborn High and Jacksonville State teammate who won two Class 6A state titles while Oxford High’s coach. “He’s won two state championships, and he’s given me the blueprint.
“I’m not doing nothing. I’m just copying Wes Brooks’ blueprint.”
Roby and Wes Brooks are the princes in arguably Calhoun County’s first family of baseball. Their late father, Jimmy, has a field named after him in Wellborn. Pat Brooks, their late mother, has a corner named after her at Choccolocco Park’s signature field.
Wes coached Wellborn and Oxford High’s teams before moving into administration two years ago, after coaching Oxford to his second Class 6A state title in 2023.
Roby owns Top Gun Athletic, a training hub for baseball players widely credited for raising the team Wes coached to that 2023 state title. Roby has added two recent titles … general manager of the Sunbelt League’s Choccolocco Monsters, a wood-bat summer league team for college players, and Hope Christian’s head coach.
This season is Hope’s first varsity season. As of the Saints’ 10-0 and 8-4 victories over South Choctaw on Tuesday at Oxford’s Big Jack Stovall Sports Complex, the Saints (23-8) are headed for the AISA semifinals. They will play the Patrician-Abbeyville winner April 28 at Montgomery’s Patterson Field..
The championship round is April 30 at Patterson Field.
Roby Brooks played more of a behind-the-scenes role while his brother had more visible coaching roles, but Roby’s roles with the Monsters and Hope Christian have brought him to the forefront. The Monsters won the Sunbelt League last summer.
Well, Roby Brooks had something to say about that Tuesday. His eyes welled as he said it.
“He’s my brother, and I’m fixing to get emotional, but I just follow his blue print,” he said. “Everything that you see out here with Hope is Wes Brooks. It’s not Roby. It’s not me. It’s not my dad. It’s not my mom. It’s Wes Brooks.
“He gave me the blue print of what to do, and I’m just real good at copycatting people. To me, he’s the best, and he’s the best by far. It ain’t even close. He is the man, and I lean on him every night, what we do here, what we do there. If you come to one of our practices, it ain’t a Hope Christian practice or a Roby Brooks practice. It’s a Wes Brooks practice.”
The on-field product is a team that earned a first-round bye in the AISA playoffs in its inaugural season and the chance to play the quarterfinals on its new home field. Their victories Tuesday, wrapped round a three-hour rain delay, came with a surprise fireworks display, fired into the sky from behind the first-base dugout.
“It’s amazing, especially for me as a senior,” said Eli Bozeman, who played for Wes Brooks at Oxford and pitched a two-hitter in Tuesday’s first game. “With it being the inaugural baseball season and being able to bring 14 guys together that have never really been together, and to make such a bond and family and have each other’s backs, it’s special.”
The Saints had several big performances Tuesday.
Besides pitching a two-hitter with eight strikeouts in Game 1, Bozeman went 2-for-3 with a double, three RBIs and two runs.
Aziah Amberson went 2-for-3 with a double and four RBIs, and Kainen Bozeman went 2-for-4 with two doubles, three runs and an RBI. Layton Owensby doubled and scored a run.
Game 2 saw Hope come back from deficits of 1-0 and 3-2, and there were fireworks before the fireworks.
Sean Perez lined to the right-center field gap in the top of the fourth inning. South Choctaw center fielder D Sikes tried but couldn’t flag it down at single depth, and the ball rolled to the fence.
Three bases later, Perez slid home to give Hope a 2-1 lead.
“I seen it go behind him, and I was like, ‘Gotta turn on the jets,'” Perez said.
Perez rounded second base and saw Roby Brooks give him the go sign immediately.
“That;’s probably one of the greatest memories I’ll ever have as a senior baseball player,” he said.
After South Choctaw took a 3-2 lead in the fifth, Hope rallied for three runs in the top of the sixth to take the lead for good. Levi Franklin delivered the go-ahead runs with a two-out, bloop single to center field.
“I felt like it was a clutch hit,” he said. “I was thinking about, I’ve got to get my pitch, so I could hit it.”
For good measure, Aziah Amberson crushed a three-run home run to make it 8-3 in the top of the seventh.
“Kainen Bozeman got on base first, and then Eli Bozeman got on, and there was talk in the dugout how we need some big-time runs,” Amberson said. “I just tried to get on base, and it went over the fence.
“As soon as I hit it, I knew it was gone.”
It all went toward earning Roby Brooks a nearly four-hour trip to scout Wednesday’s Game 3 of the Patrician-Abbeyville series, but he didn’t want to let there here and now get lost in what’s next.
Not without saluting the “The Fourteen” who earned Tuesday.
“Guy(s), you have had an amazing inaugural baseball season up to this point,” read the notes for Roby Brooks’ pregame speech to his team. “From this moment forward, you will be remembered/known as ‘The Fourteen.’ …
“Your legacy starts today.”
Before going to go coach in a stadium where his brother coached Oxford in the 2009 and 2012 state-title series, Roby Brooks also wanted to acknowledge him.
“If you come and watch us play, it’s really a Wes Brooks team,” he said. “That means the world to me. He means the world to me. I love him. I love him to death.”
Photo gallery by Joe Medley
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