Bryant’s Junior Sox run win streak to 10
EDITOR’S NOTE: In this time of COVID-19, with no sports action, BryantDaily.com will be posting past stories of Bryant athletics either posted on BryantDaily.com (from 2009 to the present) or published in the Bryant Times (from 1998 to 2008).
The winning streak the Bryant Black Sox Junior American Legion team has been on appeared to be in jeopardy when they came up against the Little Rock Diamondbacks and hard-throwing right-hander Phillip Bryant Monday night. After all, the Sox had just dismissed the other Little Rock Junior team, the Eagles, 17-1. The Eagles had no one with the Diamondback hurler’s stuff.
Still, the Sox grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first as right-hander Jacob Wright kept working out of jams. In the third, the Sox came up with four runs, forcing Bryant, the pitcher, to throw a whopping 45 pitches in that frame alone.
The Diamondbacks rallied to tie the game with five in the top of the fourth but the Black Sox ran away after that, building a 12-5 lead. They finished with a 12-7 win when the Little Rock team tacked on a pair of meaningless runs in the top of the sixth.
Thus, the winning streak stretched to 10 in a row as the Sox improved to 14-8 on the season. They’ve scored at least eight runs in each of those 10 wins, double digits in eight of them.
They’ll go for 11 on Tuesday at 6 p.m., against one of the Benton Junior teams. It could be an opportunity at payback. The last two teams to beat the Bryant Juniors were Benton Sport Shop and Benton Gingles back on June 13 after the Sox were set to host the games and found out 30 minutes before the scheduled first pitch that the Benton teams were waiting on them at Bernard Holland Park. The Bryant players, fans and coaches wound up driving to Benton, warming up again and losing twice. As it turned out, Benton was supposed to host on June 21 and Bryant was supposed to host the previous meeting. So Tuesday’s game was switched to Bryant High School Field as a trade out.
The Sox pounded out 12 hits including four doubles to take advantage of seven walks, two hit batsmen and two errors. Brooks Ellis, Logan Catton, Logan Chambers and Will McEntire each had two knocks with Ellis driving in four runs, McEntire three and Chambers two.
Catton picked up the win in relief of Wright. Konnor Clontz finished after coming on in the sixth.
The Diamondbacks singles by Javii Goins and Ty Barrett, plus a walk to Emmanuel Mayweather and yet they couldn’t score. After Goins singled to start the game, Bryant bounced back to Wright who started a 1-6-3 doubleplay.
In the bottom of the inning, Catton cracked a solid single to right with one down. Coby Greiner was drilled with a pitch then Bryant unleashed a wild pitch to get them to second and third. Ellis hit a grounder to second and Catton scored.
Wright worked around a two-out infield hit in the top of the second but Bryant got through a scoreless frame as well, pitching through an error and a balk to keep it 1-0.
Goins and Mayweather drew walks in the Diamondbacks’ third but in between Clontz made a nice play on a ball up the middle. With Goins off on the pitch, Clontz couldn’t get the force though he stepped on the second-base bag. But he threw on to first where McEntire dug out a throw in the dirt and held the bag to get the out.
After Mayweather’s walk, Chambers made a nice play on a slow bouncer to third to end the inning.
The Sox’ third started with a walk to Wright. Catton got a two-strike bunt down to sacrifice him to second and, after a wild pitch, Ellis drew a two-out walk to bring up Chambers. He and Bryant battled to a full count. Chambers fouled off three tough pitches before whacking the ninth pitch of the at bat to right-center for a clutch two-run double to make it 3-0.
And that ignited the Sox. McEntire rifled a single up the middle to plate Chambers then Sawyer Holt plugged the gap in right-center for a double. A walk to Myers Buck loaded the bases and Clontz beat out an infield hit on a grounder into the hole at short to pick up an RBI, making it 5-0.
The Diamondbacks used their speed to made some things happen in the top of the fourth. Mason Gresham beat out an infield hit and, courtesy runner, Josh Evans stole second then took third on a passed ball. Eli Crain walked then tried to draw a throw to second on a steal attempt. Holt, the Sox catcher, came out throwing but his strike was caught by Wright who threw to third as Evans broke. Chambers relayed back to Holt at the plate but Evans slid in before the tag to make it 5-1.
Crain ended up at third on the play and scored on a wild pitch as Matt Wawers walked. Chambers then made a sparkling back-hand stop of a shot hit by Jack Curtis but his rushed throw was into the runner and McEntire couldn’t grab it.
Runners wound up at second and third. That’s when manager Tyler Brown decided to turn to Catton. On his second pitch, Zach Smith got a bunt down that Holt pounced on. He fired to first as Wawers scored but, when McEntire got tangled up with Smith and shaken up, he was unable to get a throw back to the plate as Curtis sprinted home to make it 5-4.
Goins kept the inning alive with a single and a stolen base. He took third on Bryant’s roller to first. Mayweather’s base hit tied the game.
It didn’t stay deadlocked long. The Diamondbacks changed pitchers in the bottom of the fourth since their starter had already reached 79 pitches in the game. But the relievers struggled.
Catton’s parachute single to right-center opened the frame. Greiner walked then, after another reliever was brought in, the duo worked a double steal and Ellis yanked a single to left to drive them both home.
Ellis stole second and went to third on Chambers’ grounder to the right side. McEntire’s grounder to the left side resulted in a wild throw to first. Ellis scored and McEntire wound up at second. When Holt walked, a third reliever entered for Little Rock and promptly plunked Buck. McEntire scored on a wild pitch as Clontz walked then Ryan Taylor, running for Holt, scampered home on an errant delivery to make it 10-5.
The count went to 2-0 on Wright and Mayweather became the fifth D’Backs’ pitcher, the fourth of the inning. Though he completed the walk to Wright, he got out of the inning by starting a 1-2-3 doubleplay.
Catton surrendered a one-out double to Crain in the top of the fifth. With two down, the first pitch to Curtis was in the dirt and blocked by Holt. Crain, thinking he had time to advance to third, took off only to have Holt scramble after the ball and fire to third in time to nail him, ending the inning.
The Sox were just as rough on Mayweather as they were on the other Diamondbacks’ pitchers. Greiner’s drive to left-center was played into a double as the outfielders couldn’t figure out who was going to catch it. Ellis then burned Crain in left with a shot for an RBI double. Chambers singled him to third then McEntire capped the scoring with an RBI single.
The Little Rock team took advantage of a hit batsman and a walk with a pair of infield hits and a groundout to tack on their final pair of runs before Clontz finished it with a strikeout.
