Word of mouth, social media campaigns and school pride won the day for Escambia County High School, as the school’s baseball cap recently took first place in a statewide readers’ poll on the AL.com website.

On April 30, the website posted a poll with 50 different schools and asking which one had the “most stylish baseball cap.” That original list was trimmed to a final 10 schools on May 8.

Although ECHS finished only sixth in the initial top 50 vote, Blue Devils fans quickly mobilized in the final poll. By Wednesday, May 13, it became apparent that the final vote would be a two-school race — ECHS had 23,673 votes (45.42 percent) and Fort Payne High School had 23,463 votes (45.02 percent). No other school had even 2 percent of the vote.

The poll did not officially close until Sunday at midnight, and ECHS voters took advantage of the opportunity to show their pride in their school and community. When the poll finally closed, ECHS finished in first place with 43,612 votes to Fort Payne’s 32,288 — a difference of 11,324 votes.

“I think it was great for the whole community to have something to get excited about,” ECHS principal Dennis Fuqua said. “I think it shows that we do have a good bit of community support, when it comes to doing something for our school.”

Fuqua said he was not sure if AL.com would be contacting the school or awarding a prize, or if the contest was just for pride. He said that school administrators were pondering holding a fundraiser or cap sale in the future.

“We thought about maybe doing a shirt with a slogan that might say something like, ‘Yes, our cap does look better than yours,’” Fuqua said, with a laugh. “We may do something like that as a fundraiser for the baseball team.”

The winning cap is white with the letters “E” and “C” in blue, and a small pitchfork splitting the letters in the middle. Fuqua said that he has already had several community members contact him about buying the caps.

“If there’s enough interest, we might do a pre-order and get some in,” he said.

Regardless of the ultimate outcome of the contest results, Fuqua said it gave positive exposure to ECHS.

“I’ve had a ton of people in the community mention that they made it a point to vote as often as they could,” he said. “We’ve had lots of people talking about it, and I think it’s good publicity for the school.”