Dale blanks Indiana team on three hits; Senior Sox reach championship game
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MEMPHIS — Harrison Dale fired a three-hit shutout, making a lone run in the bottom of the second hold up as the Bryant Black Sox Senior American Legion team advanced to the championship game of the Keith Hagan Memorial All American wood bat tournament with a 1-0 win over the Evansville, Ind., Wolfpack this afternoon.
The Sox were set to play in the final at 6 p.m., against the winner of the semifinal game between Batters Box DeMarini of Collierville, Tenn., and the Quakes of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. The Tennessee team came into that 3:30 ballgame as the lone remaining unbeaten team in the tournament at 8-0.
Hayden Lessenberry scored the lone run of the Black Sox’ win. He led off the second with a double, took third on Chase Tucker’s grounder to the right side and scored on a sacrifice fly by Dalton Holt.
Dale retired the last eight batters he faced. He walked two and struck out five. He worked around a two-out error in the first and a two-out single to center in the second.
Evansville threatened with two down in the third. A single and two stolen bases had a runner at third. After a walk, Dale got the Wolfpack’s three-hole hitter to fly out to Drew Tipton in left.
A two-out single in the fourth came to naught and in the field, a wild pitch on a third strike and a one-out walk created some tension with the top of the Evansville batting order coming up. But Dale got the lead-off man to pop to Trevor Ezell at short then retired the two-hole hitter on a called third strike.
Those were the last base-runners the Wolfpack could muster.
For the Sox, Korey Thompson singled with one out in the third and advanced to second on Ezell’s groundout but was stranded. In the fourth, Blake Patterson singled to lead off the inning but was forced at second as the Evansville pitcher induced three consecutive groundouts to send it to the fifth.
Bryant threatened to pad the lead in the bottom of the sixth when Ezell singled, Tipton walked and Patterson was struck by a delivery with no one out. But the Evansville hurler worked out of the jam to keep it 1-0.
The Black Sox are 26-3 going into the championship game.
