AUBURN, Ala. – Every summer since they were 12, Conor Davis and Rankin Woley teamed up to play travel baseball for East Cobb in Atlanta.
After all those summers together, suddenly in high school, they were on opposing teams.
"We had always been best friends in summer ball, and then when it finally came to high school, we were like, 'What do we do now?'" Davis recalled. "Our schools are rivals. In football, we want to beat the crap out of each other and in baseball, you just want to beat them as bad as you can."
"They beat us in the regular season pretty bad, baseball and football," Woley recalled.
But in the postseason, with state championships on the line in their senior year, Woley's Westminster Wildcats exacted their revenge with a dramatic 38-31 comeback overtime win over Conor's Blessed Trinity team, with both of the future Auburn Tigers playing quarterback.
Davis' second touchdown run gave Blessed Trinity a 31-17 fourth quarter lead. With 4 minutes remaining, Woley threw a touchdown pass to pull his team within seven points.
On the ensuing onside kick, three of Conor's teammates, including his younger brother Ryan, converged on the ball.
"It went through one's hands, and then two people hit each other," Davis said.
"It's coming at you so fast, it skips, and hit the kid right in the chest, goes down 20 yards, and we came up with it," Woley said. "Then our little shifty running back made a couple moves. He was 5-3, 150, just muscle."
"He was a bowling ball," Davis lamented. Woley's team scored on the next play to tie the game at 31-31 before winning in OT.
Woley also played free safety, putting him and Davis on the field at the same time. On one play, an unblocked, blitzing Woley had a clean shot on his pal.
"I was totally uncovered, I didn't really know what to do," Woley said.
"He came off the end, uncovered," said Davis, reliving a play that occurred four years earlier. "He had a free shot. I kind of ducked. He somehow got a hand on my facemask and ripped it off. It was 15 yards.
"I got up so mad and I looked, and it was Rankin. We looked at each other. He was like, 'I didn't get you.'"
In the spring of 2016, Davis and Woley would meet again with a state championship at stake, this time on the baseball diamond.
Conor's team had won back-to-back baseball titles, but once again, Rankin's Wildcats had their number.
Woley, his team's closer, got Davis on a comebacker for the dogpile-delivering final out.
"That was pretty interesting," Rankin said. "Pretty fun."
After all the van rides growing up to places like Orlando and Indiana for tournaments, Woley and Davis went their separate ways when it was time for college.
Davis came to the Plains. Woley began at LSU, before transferring to Chattahoochee Valley Community College.
"As soon as I left LSU, I got a text from Conor that day," Woley said. "He was like, 'You've got to come to Auburn.'"
When Woley transferred to Auburn last fall, the travel ball teammates were reunited.
From rivals to roommates.
Heading into Auburn's final regular season series at LSU, Woley's former team, the run-producing roomies have combined for nine home runs, 68 RBI, and more laughs than they can count.
"It's pretty much the same way it was when we were younger," Davis said. "We really enjoy going to play baseball together, then getting the time together when we're not playing."
"We always like to have a lot of fun," Woley said. "Whether we were 14. Now we're 21. It's kind of the same stuff, we're just having fun, telling stories, messing with each other."
Scouting reports:
Rankin Woley on Conor Davis: "In football, he had a lot of really good fakes, because I got faked out a lot. Their running back in the state championship game had 253 yards. It was very downhill, physical. And then he'd hit you with the fake and beat you deep. You had to have somebody on him the whole time. The fakes in football were the tough thing.
"They got us the first half, two deep balls, because people were coming off fakes. He'd fake it on balls that they'd rush, too. It wasn't like he'd take off a play. It was fake, fake, fake, and all of a sudden, there's the deep ball.
"And then in baseball, I knew the whole time that he likes to take early, so that's why I threw a ball right down the middle the first pitch that last at-bat in the state championship game. I was like, 'I know he's taking here,' so I just threw one right down the middle. Once I got the strike, we go breaking ball, breaking ball, breaking ball."
Conor Davis on Rankin Woley: "In high school baseball, we were trying to pitch around him and Will Benson, who's playing in the Cleveland Indians organization right now. We would just try to pitch away to them as much as we could. I remember our coach saying, 'Try and throw curveballs in the dirt early.' ("That still holds true," says Rankin).
"He could hit to all sides of the field. He had power to all sides. We were just trying to get him off-rhythm.
"In football, it was try and wear him out as much as we could, pile on him whenever he carried the ball, and take as many shots at him as we could, because he played both ways. That was our plan, we were trying to run away from No. 12, so we would toss to the right side when he was on the left. And then we would fake toss, and try and throw over his head, to get him running back."
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer