SHERWOOD — The Bryant 14-year-old All-Star team cruised to the championship of the Firecracker Classic played at Sylvan Hills on Sunday, June 28, with a 9-0 win over the Sylvan Hills Twisters and an 11-0 run-rule win over Pine Bluff in which they scored in every inning.
Next up for the squad is the Babe Ruth State tournament in Lonoke beginning July 10.
The team members are Jacob Coppock, Logan Grant, Logan Chambers, Cade Dupree, Coby Greiner, Ryan Taylor, Brock Bariola, Logan Catton, Will McEntire, Sawyer Holt, Ryan Lessenberry, Cameron Tipton, Elijah King and Clift Chaffin. They are managed by Michael Catton with help from assistant coaches Phillip Dupree and Madison McEntire.
In the championship game, McEntire threw four innings, striking out eight and walking four. Pine Bluff’s lone hit came in the second inning when Grant charged in from shortstop but was unable to come up with a high chopper just past the mound. Grant pitched the final inning and struck out two.
Bryant plated four in the top of the first, helped by three walks, two hit batters and an error. Bryant’s lone hit was a double to left-center by Chambers, which scored Coppock with the game’s first run. Dupree, Grant and Taylor also came around to score.
In the second, Tipton led off with a walk and was bunted to second by Chaffin. Coppock also walked but not before a wild pitch moved Tipton to third. Another wild pitch scored Tipton and allowed Coppock to advance all the way to third when Pine Bluff left the bag uncovered. Chambers then collected his second hit with a grounder up the middle to make the score 6-0.
Bryant tacked on single runs in both the third and fourth. In the third, Taylor walked, stole second, went to third on Catton’s grounder to second and then scored when McEntire grounded to short and the throw pulled the first baseman off the bag. The following inning, Chaffin walked with one out, advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored on Coppock’s double into the right-center gap.
In their final at-bat, Bryant added three more when Dupree and Bariola drew walks and Catton reached on a throwing error by the pitcher which allowed Dupree to score. Wild pitches later plated Dupree and Bariola to make the final score 11-0.
In the semifinal game against the Twisters, Coppock fanned five in three innings and Greiner pitched a scoreless fourth.
Bryant opened the scoring when Chambers reached on an error and scored on Grant’s double down the line in left. After Dupree moved Grant up with a groundout to the pitcher, Taylor dropped a pop that landed just inside the foul line beyond first to make the score 2-0.
Catton led off the second and reached second when the right fielder couldn’t come up with his fly ball. Greiner’s single to left moved him to third and then Tipton’s soft pop fell just beyond the shortstop to load the bases. Holt forced Tipton out at second but Catton scored on the play. Lessenberry singled sharply to center to bring home Greiner and then Coppock concluded the scoring with a grounder to second that scored Holt to make the score 5-0.
In the third, Dupree doubled to right with one out and, after Taylor was hit by a pitch, both runners moved up on a wild pitch. With an 0-2 count, Bariola singled both runners home. He then scored when Greiner bounced a single into left field. Bryant final run came in the fourth when Chaffin stroked a double to the gap in right-center and scored on McEntire’s sac fly to center.
Friday night’s storm limited pool play to a single game on Saturday. Bryant hammered the Sylvan Hills 14s early with three runs in the first on only two hits, a single to left by Chambers and a two-run single up the middle by Bariola.
In the second, 15 players came to the plate and 10 of them scored as Catton, Holt, Coppock, Chambers, Grant, and Bariola each collected a hit, in addition to Dupree, Taylor and King reaching on errors, Tipton and Lessenberry being hit by pitches, and McEntire hitting a sacrifice fly.
Bryant used five pitchers in the four-inning game, but the highlight of the contest came with one out to go when Manager Catton walked to the mound and signaled to the bullpen for his “lefty.” Chambers, a natural right-hander who is limited to batting this season because of a separated growth plate in his right shoulder, jogged to the mound with a big grin on this face and took over for McEntire with a runner on first. With Chambers pitching left-handed from the windup, the runner stole second and then third and scored on a throwing error as Chambers worked the count to 2-2. With the bases empty, Manager Catton turned to his coaches and remarked, “If he strikes this kid out we will never hear the end of it” – and that’s exactly what happened on the next pitch when Chambers got the batter to swing and miss a chin-high “fastball.”
