Patterson leads Sox to impressive win over Oklahoma champs
EDITOR’S NOTE: Because the look back at each day in Bryant athletic history has been so favorably received during the time when there was no sports during the COVID-19 shutdown, BryantDaily.com will continueposting 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).
Photos courtesy of Samantha Breeding
NORTH LITTLE ROCK — For those who expected the second round game at the 2014 MidSouth Senior American Legion tournament between the Bryant Black Sox, champions of Arkansas, and the Oklahoma Outlaws, champions of their state, to be the best game of the event so far:
Evan Lee (22) throws to Hayden Thompson at first trying ti pick-off an Oklahoma base-runner. (Photo courtesy of Samantha Breeding)
Well, it was for Bryant.
“That was the best game we’ve played all year,” declared Sox manager Darren Hurt after his team’s 8-0 victory, which thrust them into the winners’ bracket finals in their quest to become just the sixth team from Arkansas since 1926 to make the American Legion World Series.
Hurt’s declaration is no small thing considering his Sox are now 44-4 going into tonight’s 7 p.m. game against Columbia, Tenn.
“Because we faced good pitching — good arms — and kept finding ways to get it done,” the coach explained.
Add to that the fact that lefty Evan Lee and right-hander Blake Patterson combined on a four-hit shutout of the Outlaws, the Regional runners-up last season and a World Series team most recently in 2010.
In other results on Friday, Louisiana ousted Kansas, 8-6, and Missouri knocked out host North Little Rock, 6-5. In the late game, which concluded after midnight, Tennessee, which trailed 6-0 going into the bottom of the ninth, scored seven runs after two were out to stun Mississippi, 7-6.
Regarding the Sox’ win, as Bryant assistant coach Jason Thompson put it, “Patterson went off.”
Chase Tucker looks toward the infield after making a long run to get to the centerfield wall for a catch. (Photo courtesy of Samantha Breeding)
Not only did he throw six innings allowing two hits without a walk and fanning four, but Patterson led the offense going 3 for 5 with two doubles and a majestic home run over the 20-foot-high wall in right at UALR’s Curran-Conway Field (where the tournament was moved to when a thunderstorm settled over Burns Park Friday morning and flooded the Vince DeSalvo Stadium field). The doubles were both off the wall in center, some 390 feet away from home plate.
Add to that, all three blasts came with two strikes.
“He hit a bomb,” Hurt related. “A towering home run to right field. I really don’t think it touched a tree. He was really on tonight. He was seeing it well.
“He was absolutely lights out,” he added regarding Patterson’s pitching. “It was fun to watch.”
The right-hander retired 11 in a row at one point and wound up setting down 16 of the last 17 batters.
Lee gave the Sox a big lift. Idle with a broken tailbone since trying to pitch through pain on June 19 at the Battle of Omaha, he tossed three innings of two-hit shutout ball.
“It was his first time to really compete in seven weeks or something like that,” Hurt noted. “His stuff was working but, again, he wasn’t going to have a lot of gas in the tank. The plan really went just like we drew it up. We thought we’d get three or four out of E.Lee. He reached 40 pitches in the third so we said we’ll shut him down there and got with Pat.”
The Sox, coming off a 13-hit performance in a 9-1 win over Louisiana on Thursday, had 12 against Oklahoma. Eight of the nine starters had hits and the other drove in a run. Korey Thompson matched his two-hit night from Thursday with two more. Dalton Holt added two including a clutch two-out RBI single in the eighth.
“It was really the whole team,” Hurt acknowledged.
Defense played a role too, as usual. Perhaps most tellingly in the first inning when Oklahoma’s Stevie Thompson led off with a double and Justin McGregor followed with a single as Lee was getting his feet. Brandan Warner made a nice stab to his left on a chopper hit by Josh Rolette. Outlaws’ clean-up hitter Carmeron Warren followed with a drive to the deepest part of the park in center only to have Tucker race back and flag it down at the wall for the out.
Chase Tucker and teammate Austin Caldwell celebrate after his catch at the fence in Friday’s game. (Photo courtesy of Samantha Breeding)
And when Corey Zangari lined to center, Tucker sprinted in and snagged it too the end the inning.
Lee pitched around lead-off walks in the second and third.
In the meantime, the Sox scored a run in each of the first three frames. In the first, Trevor Ezell, who was 1 for 2 with a pair of free passes and a sacrifice fly, drew his first walk. He was forced at second on a grounder to short by Drew Tipton but then Tucker and Hayden Lessenberry cracked consecutive singles to load the bases.
Outlaws’ starter Jarod Price looked like he might get out of the inning unscathed after he fanned Patterson but, with Warner at the plate, he unleashed a wild pitch and Tipton scampered home with the game’s first run.
In the second, Holt reached on an error and was sacrificed to second by Korey Thompson. Ezell drew a two-out walk then Tipton hit a bouncer that drew a wild throw. Holt scored and Ezell wound up a third, though he was stranded.
There were two out in the third when Patterson unloaded with his shot to right, making it 3-0.
Patterson’s lone sticky inning was the fourth when a one-out error and a single by Price had two aboard. But a grounder to Ezell at short resulted in a threat-killing doubleplay.
Price settled in and kept the Sox off the board in the fourth and fifth. With Patterson rolling along on the mound for Bryant, his teammates produced another run in the sixth. With two out, Korey Thompson swatted a single up the middle. Ezell followed with a knock and when Tipton singled to left, the bags were packed for Tucker who waited out a walk to force in the run.
Up 4-0, Bryant produced two more in the seventh when Patterson pounded his first double, Warner walked, Holt beat out a bunt single and Trey Breeding drew a walk to force in a run.
With one out, Ezell came through with a sacrifice fly to make it 6-0.
In the top of the eighth, Patterson’s string was snapped when Scottie Thompson singled with one out. But the Bryant hurler got McGregor to ground to Warner at third then Rolette lofted a pop-up that Warner caught to end the inning.
In the home eighth, Tucker walked and scored all the way from first on Patterson’s second double. With two down, Holt singled in Patterson with the final run.
A fly to Tipton in left and groundouts to Warner and Ezell brought the game to an end.
The Sox were the home team in the game. Hurt won the coin toss, breaking a trend in which he lost the flip in six straight games, all wins. They were last the home team in the first round of the State tournament, which was held at Bryant. So, with the win, any notion that being the visitor in those previous games was kind of a good-luck charm was put to rest.
