Photos by Rick Nation
Drew Tipton was presented with one of those situations that all baseball players dream about. The Benton Panthers issued an intentional walk to the player before him in the line-up, Trevor Ezell.
Jason Hastings picked up the win in relief. (Photo by Rick Nation)
It was actually the smart decision for Benton head coach Mark Balisterri. After all, Ezell had reached base and scored twice. And Balisterri had watched the Bryant Hornets’ lead-off man go 4-for-4 against the El Dorado Wildcats the night before. (Little did he know that by reaching base in his first two plate appearances, Ezell had run a streak of reaching base to eight consecutive trips and, phenomenally, 19 of his last 21. Yes, in the previous five games plus two innings, he’d been retired just twice.)
First base was open for Ezell with Dalton Holt on second after Korey Thompson’s squeeze bunt had plated Justin Emmerling to tie the game 4-4.
No brainer, really. You walk Ezell, right?
But to any competitive baseball player — and Tipton is one of the most competitive whether on the diamond or the football field — walking the guy in front of you is considered a challenge to your manhood, a slap in the face even if it’s not meant to be.
Bryant second baseman Korey Thompson chases down a looping liner in shallow center. (Photo by Rick Nation)
So, in any player’s dream of dreams, what do you do after the other guy walks someone on purpose to bring you to the plate?
Just what Tipton did.
On the very first pitch to him from Benton lefty Chase Nix, he crushed an absolute bomb over the boards in left field, a three-run shot that, along with some gutsy relief pitching by Jason Hastings, catapulted the Hornets to an 8-4 win and sole possession of first place in the South Conference.
“As soon as he rounded first I could see him smiling,” noted Bryant coach Kirk Bock of Tipton’s blast. “He said that was his first home run in five years and it’s going in his trophy case.
“This game means a lot to our kids,” he acknowledged. “I’m not from here so it’s just another ballgame for me. But to our kids, it means a ton.”
For the second night in a row, the Hornets had turned back a team that came in sharing first place with them. On Thursday, Bryant disappointed El Dorado 8-0 in a first-place battle.
The Hornets improved to 18-2 overall and 7-1 in league play and ran their winning streak to 12 in a row.
And there was this too: The last team to beat Bryant was Benton. On March 18, the Panthers pinned a 4-1 loss on the Hornets. In fact, that was the last time a team had scored more than one run in any game against Bryant.
“We responded real well,” Bock said of the back-to-back first-place duels. “We played hard in both of them and we played well in both of them. We had a couple of hiccups right there in the second inning of this one but Hastings came in and did what he needed to do. Then, offensively we gave him some backing.”
Dalton Holt smothers a bouncer to first. (Photo by Rick Nation)
Hastings relieved starter Blaine Knight in the second after the Panthers had grabbed a 4-2 lead. With runners at the corners and two out, Hastings walked Ben Brasuell to load the bases. But he struck out Drew Dyer, who had ignited the inning with a lead-off double.
The lefty finished the game pitching around three hits and three walks over 5 1/3 scoreless frames. He forced the Panthers to strand a runner at second in the third, erased a walk with a doubleplay ball in the fourth then escaped a two-out bases-loaded jam in the fifth. Hastings wound up retiring the final seven batters he faced.
Knight worked out of a jam in the first. He walked Colton Nix but then picked him off. Chase Nix doubled to deep left but the Bryant right-hander got Brinson Williams to tap back to the mound and, after a walk to Jared Barker, got Brasuell to foul out to third sacker Brandan Warner.
Ezell walked to start the bottom of the inning and when he appeared to be picked off, he sprinted to second and beat the relay from Barker, the first baseman. Tipton was robbed of a hit in right-center by Colton Nix but Chase Tucker and Trey Breeding worked walks on 3-2 pitches to load the bases for Hastings who laced an 0-2 delivery to the gap in left center for a two-run single.
Benton’s four-run second was somewhat reminiscent of the previous meeting between the two teams when the Panthers used bunts to induce Hornet miscues to gain the upper hand.
After Dyer’s solid double down the right-field line, Cameron Spivey bunted. The Hornets tried to get Dyer at third but the throw was late and both runners were aboard safely. After Jack Jumper lined to Thompson at second, Bailey Mitchell got a bunt down. In his haste to make a play to try to get Dyer coming home, Knight fumbled the ball just enough that all hands were safe.
Bryant centerfielder Chase Tucker’s dive for a sinking liner to center came up just short of a clean catch. (Photo by Rick Nation)
Colton Nix lined out to Hastings in right but then Chase Nix pulled a single that way to drive in Spivey with the tying run. And when Hastings rushed it a bit hoping to make a throw to the plate, Mitchell scooted to third and Nix pulled into second.
On the very next pitch, Williams laced a two-run double to left to give the Panthers a 4-2 lead.
Knight hit Barker with his next pitch and Bock called in Hastings to relieve.
“We just didn’t do what we needed to do,” Bock said of the rugged inning. “We work (bunt defense) and we work it hard. We were just not where we needed to be on those.”
The Hornets whittled a run off the Benton lead in the bottom of the inning but missed a chance to get more, though they were making Chase Nix throw a lot of pitches.
“In the first game we played, it was a large zone so we had to be a little more aggressive,” Bock noted. “In this one, it was a little tighter zone so we didn’t have to be as aggressive. We were trying to get the ball middle-in and when we got it middle-in, we hit it.”
With two down, Ezell singled up the middle. He would end up 2-for-2 in the game with a pair of walks extending his on-base streak to 10 and 21 of 23 plate appearances. Tipton drew a walk and Tucker yanked an RBI single into left. A walk to Breeding loaded the bases but Nix got Hastings on a check-swing dribbler to end the threat with the Panthers still up, 4-3.
Spivey led off the third with a single and Jumper sacrificed him to second. But he got not further and Hastings retired Mitchell and Colton Nix on flyballs to Tucker in center.
The game-turning home third started with Emmerling getting plunked on a two-strike delivery. With one out, Holt hit a grounder to Jumper at short. In an attempt to start a doubleplay, however, Jumper’s toss to second was errant. Emmerling hustled to third and, in the next pitch, Thompson got the bunt down to bring him home, making it 4-4.
Holt went to second on the play, opening up first for the intentional pass to Ezell and Tipton’s smash.
Bryant tacked on a run in the fourth when Breeding doubled to chase Nix. Ryan Rickford came on an retired the next two although Connor Tatum, running for Breeding, took third on a passed ball. Warner worked a walk. And, with Holt at the plate, Warner left first early and got in enough of a rundown for Tatum to fly home, making it 8-4.
The Panthers mounted a threat in the top of the fifth when Dyler and Jumper singled and Mitchell drew a two-out walk to load the bases with the top of the order coming up. But Hastings got Colton Nix to fly to Tucker in center to get out of the jam.
The Hornets host a non-conference game against White Hall on Monday then return to league action on Thursday at Pine Bluff and Friday at Little Rock Fair.
HORNETS 8, PANTHERS 4
Benton ab r h bi Bryant ab r h bi
Co.Nix, cf 3 0 0 0 Ezell, ss 2 3 2 0
Ch.Nix, p-rf 3 1 2 1 Tipton, lf 3 1 1 3
Williams, c 4 0 1 2 Tucker, cf 3 1 2 1
Johnson, cr 0 0 0 0 Breeding, c 2 0 1 0
Barker, 1b 2 0 0 0 Tatum, cr 0 1 0 0
Brasuell, dh 3 0 0 0 Hastings, rf-p 4 0 1 2
Dyer, lf 4 1 2 0 Emmerling, dh 3 1 0 0
Spivey, 3b 4 1 1 0 Warner, 3b 3 1 0 0
Jumper, ss 2 0 1 0 Holt, 1b 3 1 0 0
Lane, pr 0 0 0 0 Thompson, 2b 2 0 0 1
Mitchell, 2b 1 1 0 1 Knight, p 0 0 0 0
Krikorian, rf 0 0 0 0 Lee, rf 0 0 0 0
Rickford, p 0 0 0 0
Totals 26 4 7 4 Totals 25 8 7 7
Benton 040 000 0 — 4
Bryant 214 100 x — 8
E—Knight, Hastings, Jumper, Barker. DP—Bryant 1. LOB—Benton 9, Bryant 8. 2B—Ch.Nix, Dyer, Williams, Breeding. HR—Tipton. SB—Ezell 2, Tucker, Tatum. S—Mitchell, Thompson, Jumper.
Pitching ip r er h bb so
Benton
Ch.Nix (L) 3 8 3 5 6 0
Rickford 3 0 0 2 1 0
Bryant
Knight 1.2 4 1 4 2 0
Hastings (W) 5.1 0 0 3 3 0
HBP—Barker (by Knight), Emmerling (by Ch.Nix). PB—Williams.
