SHERIDAN — There will be no District or State Tournament for the Bryant Black Sox Junior American Legion team this year.
And it took a trip to Sheridan to find that out.[more]
The Sox, with just nine players available, were set to start their District opener against Texarkana on Monday evening when the Zone Commissioner brought a copy of Bryant’s registered roster to Sox manager Darren Hurt to tell him that he had too many 17-year-old players that were listed on both the Junior and Senior rosters. Hurt was informed that there was a limit of three 17-year-olds that could be eligible for post-season play in the Junior Division while also on the Senior roster. The Black Sox had to utilize four to even field a team for the game.
Two other 17 year olds on both rosters were attending the Xtrainnings showcase in Jonesboro and another has been injured, but they wouldn’t have been eligible to play anyway, as it turns out.
The fact that only three 17’s could be eligible was news to Hurt who said it had never come up at any of the meetings he’d attended, nor was there any kickback when he’d filled out a registration roster on-line earlier in the season.
“We only had 12 kids that were 17-and-under so we just put all 12 of them on the (Junior) roster,” Hurt explained. “Then we put all the 18’s and the one 19 we have on the Senior roster and we filled in the rest of the Senior roster with 17-year-olds and one 16 that we were going to need. So we had a 12-man Junior roster and an 18-man Senior roster.”
Incidentally, that list of 18 on the Senior roster includes a trio of injured players. Catcher B.J. Ellis and outfielder Garrett Bock have been unavailable for most of or all of the season, respectively. First baseman/designated hitter Hunter Mayall was injured on the Senior Sox' recent trip to a tournament in Columbia, Tenn., and his status is uncertain.
The commissioner apologized for not checking the roster before Monday when the tournament began but, as Hurt noted, even if he had, it wouldn’t have changed anything.
“The way I understood it, you could have no 18’s on your Junior roster but unlimited 16’s and 17’s,” Hurt related. “The fact that you could only have three that were listed on both rosters, the first time I had heard that was today.
“But knowing the rule wouldn’t have changed anything,” he added. “With our numbers and ages, we couldn’t have fielded two teams. It would’ve just saved us a trip to Sheridan today is what it would’ve come down to.”
So the Junior Sox’ season concludes pre-maturely with a 14-2-1 record.
“We won’t have this problem next year because we have a huge freshman class coming in whereas, this year, we were scratching just to have enough kids to play,” Hurt mentioned, referring to the fact that there were so few 16 year olds. “With this, they’ve shot us out of the water.
“I feel horrible for the four (younger) kids,” he concluded. “We had talked early about not even having a Junior team, period. We had a Junior team for those kids or we would’ve had to tell them they couldn’t play this summer.”
Here are the final stats for the team:
BRYANT BLACK SOX JUNIOR AMERICAN LEGION
2010 STATS through 17 games
Batting
Name ab r h bi d t hr bb so sb avg
Chris Joiner 19 9 13 7 3 0 0 5 1 5 .684
Blake Davison 6 1 4 3 0 1 0 4 1 3 .667
Caleb Milam 26 10 13 11 4 0 0 6 4 2 .500
Hunter Mayall 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .500
Dylan Cross 11 0 5 4 0 0 0 3 2 0 .455
Tanner Tolbert 16 8 7 5 1 1 1 2 1 4 .438
Landon Pickett 29 10 11 8 2 0 2 7 3 0 .379
Trent Rivers 32 6 12 9 1 1 0 3 7 6 .375
Ozzie Hurt 46 18 16 9 1 0 0 10 5 3 .348
Jordan Taylor 28 8 9 9 4 0 0 4 1 0 .321
Josh Pultro 33 8 10 11 2 0 0 8 3 4 .303
Tyler Brown 32 7 9 6 1 0 0 4 1 2 .281
Evan Jobe 50 12 13 8 4 1 0 3 11 3 .260
Quinton Motto 28 8 7 8 3 0 0 4 4 1 .250
Matt Neal 20 5 5 2 1 0 0 4 2 2 .250
Lucas Castleberry 7 4 1 1 1 0 0 4 0 1 .143
Caleb Garrett 7 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 .143
Tyler Jamison 10 2 1 0 1 0 0 5 3 2 .100
Totals 398 120 138 101 29 5 3 76 49 39 .347
Pitching
Name w-l ip r er h bb so era
Dylan Cross 3-0 13 1 0 5 6 13 0.00
Ozzie Hurt 0-0 2 0 0 0 0 2 0.00
Chris Joiner 0-0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0.00
Tyler Brown 2-0 12 6 6 12 8 11 3.50
Jordan Taylor 1-0 11.1 4 2 12 0 6 1.24
Landon Pickett 2-0 15 8 6 16 7 14 2.80
Caleb Milam 2-0 11 6 5 10 4 14 3.18
Matt Neal 1-0 13 7 7 12 9 15 3.77
Quinton Motto 3-1 19.1 17 11 28 7 12 3.98
Caleb Garrett 0-1 1.2 3 2 4 0 0 8.40
Totals 14-2 99.1 52 39 100 41 87 2.75
Saves: Taylor 2, Cross 1, Milam 1.
