From the Archives: 2000 — Part Two: The Comeback Rebels
By the time the 2000 Lee Rebels reached the playoffs, they had already spent much of the spring living on the edge. They were tired. They had survived a crowded district race, extra games and a schedule that refused to cooperate.
Then, in Amarillo, their season came within three outs of ending and something changed.
Three Outs From Home
Lee opened bi-district against Amarillo Tascosa with a 5-1 loss. The next day wasn't looking much better. In Game 2, the Rebels entered the seventh inning trailing 7-1. One more quiet inning and the season was over. Coach Jesse Benavidez remembered the mood in the dugout.
“Do you want your season to end right now?”
The answer was no.
Then someone said, as Benavidez recalled it, “let’s do something about it.”
So they did. Lee scored eight runs in the top of the seventh inning. A game that had looked finished suddenly belonged to the Rebels, 9-7. And once Lee escaped, Tascosa never recovered. The Rebels rolled through the deciding game 15-3 in five innings, turning what had nearly been a season-ending afternoon into a trip to the next round.
It was more than a comeback.
It became a preview.
From Surviving to Overwhelming
If the Tascosa series required a miracle, the next round required almost none. El Paso Jefferson came to Ernie Johnson Field, and Lee's offense erupted. The Rebels won 14-2 and 21-4, both in five innings. Thirty-five runs in two games. Brad Stovall, hitting near the bottom of the order, drove in three runs in the second game. Cedric Benson drove in three of his own. Contributions were coming from everywhere.
Stovall explained it simply:
“We came out and put runners on base and that’s how you score a lot of runs.”
Suddenly a team that had barely escaped the opening round was rolling. Lee had reached the regional quarterfinals for the sixth time in seven seasons but Lubbock High wasn't going to make the next step easy.
The Westerners took Game 1. Once again, Lee found itself chasing a series. Once again, the Rebels responded. Behind Collin Gilliam, Lee won Game 2 8-3, forcing a deciding third game. And naturally, because this was the 2000 Lee Rebels, Game 3 became another fight.
Lubbock jumped ahead 3-1.
Lee tied it in the sixth.
Then came the seventh inning.
Jeff Cramer had doubled and scored the tying run earlier. T.J. Mansell delivered four innings of shutout relief. Jon Rogers made what the newspaper described as a run-saving—and probably game-saving—diving catch to end the third. Everybody seemed to have a hand in keeping the season alive.
Then Benson came to the plate.
One Swing
Cedric Benson had already experienced a rough moment earlier in the series. He had been ejected from the first game after arguing a called third strike. He wanted another chance and with the deciding game tied 3-3 in the seventh, he got it.
Benson saw a hanging curveball.
He didn't miss.
“I kind of felt that when I went up to bat that something great would come. He threw a hanging curve and I just got all of it.”
The ball left the park.
Lee led 4-3.
This time, there would be no comeback needed from the other side. The Rebels had won the series. Again.
“We Just Like to Make It Interesting”
By then, even the players understood what kind of team they had become. Two weeks earlier they had lost the opener to Tascosa before escaping with two wins. Against Lubbock, they lost the opener and did it again. Rogers put it better than anyone.
“I feel that this team can come back at any time. This team has got a lot of heart. We just like to make it interesting.”
Benavidez saw something similar.
“They believe in themselves and it happens. They never say quit. They keep on scratching.”
That may be the best description of the 2000 Rebels.
They scratched.
They hung around.
They gave themselves another inning.
Another at-bat.
Another game.
And over and over again, that was enough.
One Familiar Opponent Left
Waiting in the regional semifinals was Duncanville. There was history there. Duncanville had ended Lee's season the year before. Earlier in the 2000 season, Lee had beaten the Panthers 3-2, with Rogers hitting a dramatic two-run home run in the bottom of the seventh. The Rebels knew exactly who was waiting.
Gilliam wasn't hiding what it meant.
“We need revenge against Duncanville. They put us out last year.”
This time, though, there would be no escape. Duncanville won the regional semifinal series 7-2 and 14-3, ending Lee's run one step short of the Region I final.
The final losses were decisive, but they weren't really what defined the spring.
The season ended at Duncanville, but the recognition did not. Jon Rogers was named District 4-5A Co-MVP, sharing the honor with Midland High's Laynce Nix, while Jeff Cramer earned first-team All-District honors. Catcher Joe Frazier was named second-team All-District, and when the state's coaches released their postseason honors, Frazier and senior second baseman Josh Haney were among the Midland Lee players recognized at the All-State level.
A Team That Wouldn't Go Away
The 2000 Rebels finished 26-15. They didn't win the district championship. They didn't reach Austin. They didn't even make things particularly easy on themselves. What they did was become extraordinarily difficult to finish off. They came within three outs of elimination against Tascosa and scored eight runs. They lost a playoff opener to Lubbock and won the next two. They found pitching when they needed it, defense when a run had to be saved and a home run when there was almost no room left for another mistake.
Twenty-six years later, the scores tell part of the story. The better description came from the people who lived it.
They never said quit.
They kept scratching.
For one spring in 2000, the Lee Rebels made a habit of turning games that looked finished into stories worth remembering. Like I said, Rebels just don’t quit.
And there is still one story from this team we haven't really told.
Because sharing this baseball season were two athletes whose names would become much bigger than one spring at Ernie Johnson Field. One was a senior who could beat teams from the mound or the batter's box. The other was a junior already building a football résumé that would eventually make him one of the most recognizable athletes to ever come out of Midland.
Sources: Contemporary coverage from the Midland Reporter-Telegram, March–May 2000
NEXT UP: Jon Rogers and Cedric Benson
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