MOULTRIE — Ten years ago this week, the members of the Colquitt County High baseball team sat at tables in the Moultrie-Colquitt County Public Library, greeted well-wishers, posed for photographs and autographed baseballs.

The Packers were enjoying their celebrity status following their victory over Lassiter High in the Class AAAA state baseball championship series.

And although Colquitt County would win another state baseball championship just six years later, the first one was special, not only for the players and the coaching staff, but for the community itself.

The Packers were feted with a number of cookouts, parties and public appearances after completing a 29-victory season that was filled with games and plays still recalled with relish a decade later.

“Those guys may lose their rings,” Packers coach Jerry Croft said. “But the bonding they had with each other, the memories they made, those with stay with them forever.”

Although the Packers had advanced to the Final Four the year before before being ousted by Parkview, few predicted Colquitt County would win the championship.

“I remember the Atlanta Constitution was planning on an all-Cobb County championship, with Walton playing Lassiter,” Croft said. “We spoiled that.

“And I believe if Hayden (Gliemmo) had stayed healthy, we would have won it in 1996 too. I expected us to go deep in the playoffs that year.”

Colquitt County went into the season after posting a 24-6 record in 1996.

Gliemmo — who was 9-0 with a 1.18 ERA and a .368 batting average the previous season while being named the Region 1-AAAA Player of the Year — was returning. So were All-Region performers Will Stuckey and Reggie Stancil.

Stuckey, a junior, had been the first-team All-Region catcher his first two seasons.

Stancil, also a junior, had hit .344 with four home runs and 25 runs batted in the year before.

Jerry Croft, starting his 21st season as the Packers head coach, knew he had the makings of a championship-caliber team.

But he knew good fortune would have to meld with the talent to take the team to the championship series.

Nothing came easy for the Packers, starting with losing Stancil for much of the playoffs with a separated shoulder and then having to win a playoff game over Valdosta to take the top seed in the Region 1-AAAA tournament.

The Packers then lost the opening game of the playoff series against Lowndes that determined one of the two teams that would represent the region in the state playoffs.

Colquitt and Valdosta each finished 9-3 in the region, but needed the extra game to determine seeding for the four-team region tournament used then to determine which two teams would advance to the state tournament.

The Packers, ranked No. 5 in the state at the time, needed eight innings to defeat the Wildcats 7-5 and take the top seed in the region playoffs.

Hal Funderburk’s two-out double drove in the go-ahead run and he scored the insurance run on a wild pitch in the top of the eighth.

But that victory just meant Colquitt still had to win a best-of-three series against Lowndes to advance to the state playoffs. The Vikings were ranked No. 7 in the state.

And Lowndes won the first game of the series 7-1 in Valdosta, forcing the Packers to sweep a doubleheader at Ike Aultman Field to advance the state playoffs.

The doubleheader was delayed by rain, but the precipitation did not dampen the Packers resolve.

They won the first game 2-1 on a three-hitter by Gliemmo. The game was decided on a seventh-inning single by Blake Samples that scored Brad Tomlinson, who opened the inning with a double.

Colquitt took the clincher 4-3 behind Gliemmo and Samples for their second straight region championship.

Samples’ pitching in the nightcap saved the Packers season. The right-hander escaped bases-loaded, no-out situations in both the fourth and seventh innings to help keep the Colquitt County season alive.

Gliemmo homered in the game, but it was a game-ending 6-4-3 double play started by shortstop Waylon Stuckey, the team’s only freshman, that Croft remembers vividly to this day.

Once in the state playoffs, the Packers immediately were forced to change pitching plans when Stancil suffered a mild shoulder separation while lifting weights during a physical education class. Stancil had a 6-1 record and a 1.97 ERA and had struck out 65 in 42 2/3 innings.

But Samples, Lerenzo Banks and Travis Morse stepped up in the postseason.

Colquitt won its first-round state playoff series at home, sweeping Lakeside-Evans in a doubleheader, 5-3 and 9-4.

Banks was the surprise starter in the first game and he cooled off the Panthers. Trevor Kruger and Waylon Stuckey had home runs in the first game.

Kruger and Gliemmo homered in the nightcap.

The sweep sent the Packers to a quarterfinal meeting with South Effingham, which had just eliminated top-ranked Newnan.

The Mustangs were 22-4, but had not had to deal with anyone like Gliemmo.

In the opening game of the series at Ike Aultman Field, Gliemmo tossed his first career no-hitter and struck out 16.

In the nightcap, with the game tied 5-5 in the eighth inning, Gliemmo came on and pitched two scoreless innings to get his second win of the day when Colquitt scored four runs in the top of the ninth for a 9-5 victory.

Will Stuckey’s double drove in the tie-breaking run in the top of the ninth and younger brother Waylon followed with a three-run homer.

Gliemmo struck out the side in the bottom of the ninth to put an exclamation point on the sweep that sent the Packers to the Final Four.

Walton High was the next victim, falling to the Packers dominance at Ike Aultman Field, losing in a series-opening doubleheader 4-2 and 13-2.

Gliemmo again was surgical in the opener and the Packers took advantage of 12 walks and got an outstanding five-hit effort on the mound from Morse to win the nightcap.

The state championship series also was a dramatic one.

Lassiter High, led by veteran coach Mickey McMurtry, traveled to Moultrie, bringing an outstanding offense team.

But after a 90-minute rain delay, the 27-8 Trojans found themselves over-matched against Gliemmo, who struck out 10, and also homered, in a 7-3 victory in Game One.

The Packers appeared poised to sweep the doubleheader and ease into the state championship with a 4-1 lead in the bottom of third when ablown transformer caused the lights to go out at Ike Aultman Field.

“That squirrel got in the transformer and we had to restart it,” Croft remembers. “Travis was pitching well and we had a comfortable lead, not an overwhelming lead, but a comfortable lead. We might have gone on and won it then.”

Power was not restored and the game had to be re-started from the beginning the next day.

The loss of the early lead began to loom larger when Lassiter won the next game 10-6 forcing a third game to determine the state champion.

But Colquitt County still had its ace.

Gliemmo, summoned on less than a day’s rest, struck out eight and gave up just two earned runs as the Packers won the school’s first state baseball championship with an 11-3 victory in the final game.

“We didn’t ask him to do that,” Croft said of Gliemmo’s appearance on the mound for a second straight day. “He came to us and said he could give us a few innings. We asked him after every inning how he felt.

“After the fifth inning and we were leading 11-3, we said, ‘That’s enough.’ But he told us he wanted to finish. I told him to go ahead.”

In the two victories, Gliemmo pitched 14 innings, struck out 18 and picked off two runners. In the championship-clinching victory, he gave up a two-run first-inning homer to Lassiter’s Brad Stockton, then gave up just one run the rest of the way.

Gliemmo also went 3-for-5 at the plate in the championship-clinching game. He was 6-for-9 in the series and hit two home runs.

Will Stuckey also was outstanding in the final day of the season, going 6-for-7 with two home runs, a double and four runs batted in.

For the season, Gliemmo was 12-2 with a 1.48 ERA and 161 strikeouts. In the playoffs, he was 8-0 with 77 strikeouts in 52 innings.

One of his victories was a 10-inning, 2-1 win over Lowndes and Tim Drew in March at Ike Aultman Field. Gliemmo struck out 20 Vikings.

At the plate that season, Gliemmo led the team in hits with 52 and in batting average, .433. Of his five home runs, four were hit in the playoffs.

Gliemmo was named the region’s Player of the Year for the second year in a row and was joined on the All-Region first team by first baseman Heath Wetherington. Kruger, Stancil and Will Stuckey were named to the second team. Samples, who was 5-0 with a 2.18 ERA, received honorable mention.

Gliemmo also was recognized by USA Today as Georgia’s Player of the Year and was the winning pitcher when Team Georgia defended its Sunbelt All-Star Classic championship in Shawnee, Okla., that July.

The Packers roster that season included Waylon Stuckey, Keith Moody, Ron Sluss, Jared Croft, Will Stuckey, Blake Samples, Reggie Stancil, Hayden Gliemmo, Kyle Conger, Eric Bell, Heath Wetherington, Travis Morse, John Saunders, Hal Funderburk, Chip Venet, Tanner Jenkins, Lerenzo Banks, Jonathan Vines, Stephen Mathis, Trevor Kruger and Brad Tomlinson.

Moody, Jared Croft, the Stuckey brothers, Stancil, Wetherington, Saunders, Jenkins, Banks, Kruger and Tomlinson returned to play key roles in the Packers’ third straight trip to the Final Four in 1998.

Croft won the 300th game of his career in the series opening victory over Lassiter and was named the state’s co-Coach of the Year with McMurtry.

Croft also led the Packers to the state championship in 2003.

“I feel very fortunate about what we’ve done,” Croft said, including the players and longtime assistant coaches Keith Croft, himself a former Packer, and Tony Kirkland in the assessment. “There have been a lot of good coaches who have coached their entire careers and never won a championship. I’ve been blessed.”