Patton baseball to host eighth annual Causby Classic next month

The Patton High School baseball program recently announced details for its eighth annual Tony Causby Classic, which is set for April 6-8.

The field for this year’s tournament is back to eight teams after just four participated in the 2025 version. In addition to the host Panthers, fellow Burke County programs Draughn, East Burke, and Freedom will play in the event, and those four teams will be joined by Erwin, McDowell, North Buncombe, and R-S Central.

Last year, East Burke became the first in-county team to win the tournament. Among the other seven participating teams this year, only R-S Central has won the event before, having done so three times.

Draughn is back in the event after skipping last year, and the Wildcats reached the title game in both 2023 and ’24, losing to R-S both times.

Patton finished 2-0 in the tourney in 2022, when a rainout day shortened the event and prevented it from crowning a champion. The Panthers reached the title game in 2017 and 2018 in the first two years of the event but lost both times.

“We’re glad to be back to eight (teams this year),” Patton head coach Matt Baker said. “I like the winners/losers brackets rather than the round-robin format. Last year, the spring breaks just didn’t line up for everybody, but this year we were fortunate enough for everybody to line up.

“This is the first year while I’ve had it that we got the four county teams all in, and then got a few different teams with the mountain schools in it, so I think we’ve got a good group this year. And I think that it’s really kind of open for anyone (to win), you know. Typically I feel like in this tournament, you can kind of look at the bracket and say this team’s going to win it. I don’t really know that this year, so I think that’s kind of exciting for everybody.”

R-S (8-2) through Wednesday sported the best record among this year’s field, but Patton (7-3) isn’t far behind and beat R-S earlier last week for the first time in over a decade. North Buncombe and Erwin were each 5-4, EB had won four of its last five to surge to 4-5, Freedom sat at 4-6 and McDowell at 3-6, and Draughn was at 0-8.

The opening-round matchups include R-S Central vs. North Buncombe (11:30 a.m.), East Burke vs. Erwin (2 p.m.), Draughn vs. McDowell (4:30 p.m.), and Patton vs. Freedom (7 p.m.).

The winner between EB and Erwin will face the R-S/North Buncombe winner on day two, with the Draughn/McDowell winner set to face the Patton/Freedom winner in the nightcap. Losers bracket games will start the second and third days, followed by winners brackets games on day two and the semifinals and finals on day three.

Start times are the same for all three rounds of the event. Admission is $20 for a three-day tournament pass or $8 per day.

“Coach (Jonathan) Browning started this, and I’m fortunate enough to keep it going,” Baker added. “Tony was a great guy. He and Karen and Ty and Tripp, they’re just a great family. Karen in the past has always thrown our first pitch, but she’s going to be out of town this year, so we’re going to be fortunate enough to have Tripp come and throw out the first pitch for our game. I just think it’s cool how they always come back and experience this with us. It’s just a great thing. It helps us raise some money for the baseball team, and then we give a portion back to the ALS research.

“There’s a little more to it than baseball, and the people around here know that. It has a special meaning for us.”