Hornets nip Zebras to open league play
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).
By ROB PATRICK
BRYANT TIMES
PINE BLUFF — Brandon Fitts’ bat will come around but much of this season, his plate appearances have been a little frustrating. To his credit, however, Fitts hasn’t let his struggles with the bat affect his effort or his defense and, Tuesday night, that proved fortuitous for the Bryant Hornets.
With his team clinging to a 5-4 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning, Fitts gunned down the would-be tying run at the plate to help preserve the Hornets’ AAAAA-South Conference-opening victory over the eighth-ranked Pine Bluff Zebras at Taylor Field.
J.J. Yant, on in relief of starter Michael McClellan, closed out the victory by getting Casey Kell to ground out to first baseman Anthony Rose as the Hornets improved to 12-9 overall and dropped the Zebras to 8-4.
Elsewhere in the league on opening night, Benton, ranked No. 1 in the state, drubbed Camden Fairview 10-2; and Texarkana upended defending league champion Sheridan on the road 8-2. El Dorado’s scheduled game at Little Rock McClellan was postponed due to a wet field. Plans were to play the game on Wednesday.
Yant had relieved in the fifth inning, coming on with one out and the bases loaded, trying to protect a 5-3 lead. He surrendered a sacrifice fly to Kell then got lead-off man Bruce Henry to foul out to Rose to preserve the lead.
He then worked around a two-out walk in the sixth and retired the first man he faced in the seventh before Harrison Reed belted a double off the base of the fence in right-center.
It was Reed’s third hit of the game.
A pitch later, Ronnie Lewis singled up the middle.
“I was pretty deep but when I saw it hit I got a pretty good break on it,” recounted Fitts. “(Lewis) hit it up the middle and I just got to it as quick as I could. I knew if I fielded it clean I was just going to give it my best shot home and I wasn’t even going to hit the cut-off man. We’re playing at their place so I just said, ‘I’ve got to try to get the out right here,’ and I just threw it home the best I could.”
The throw beat the runner and McClellan, the catcher, applied the tag. Bryan Marks, running for Reed, appeared to never even reach the plate. Still, there was a protest from the Pine Bluff coaches when McClellan, turning to check Lewis as he sprinted into second base, dropped the baseball.
But the drop was well after the tag and the protest was denied. On the next pitch, Kell tapped out and the Hornets had the victory.
“I really didn’t think I’d come in until about the sixth or seventh,” said Yant, of his relief work. “But, other than that, everything was cool. I felt really good. I felt confident. I was a little scared there when (Lewis) ripped it into the outfield there, but Fitts made a really good play and so did Michael.”
It was the fourth top 10 team the Hornets have played this season. In three previous games against ranked teams, they’d lost each time by a run. This time, they turned the tables.
“We’ve been losing the one-run ballgames (this season) but tonight we pulled one out,” said head coach Terry Harper. “We got a great pitching job from McClellan. He got a little tired, but he battled like he does every time he’s out there. And Yant came in and shut the door.”
The closest thing McClellan had to an easy inning was the first when he worked around a lead-off walk. In the second, three Hornet errors and a mental mistake that resulted in a bunt single for Reed produced two unearned runs for the Zebras.
But that’s all the Z’s got after having the bases loaded and no one out. McClellan, with a sharp curveball battled his way out of the jam, stranding two.
In all, Pine Bluff left 11 baserunners on.
“That was my pitch tonight,” McClellan said. “I relied on my curveball instead of my fastball, I usually rely on my fastball but I had to go with what was working.”
Concerning the rough second inning, he added, “I knew we had a whole game to play and I just tried to keep my head in it, keep pitching, doing my job and hope our bats come around.”
And they did in the third inning when the Hornets, who amassed 11 hits against Pine Bluff starter John Anderson, tied the game. Matt Brown, who along with Tad Beene, Billy Landers, Rose and Josh Caldwell had two hits in the game, instigated the uprising with a lead-off single up the middle. He then stole second.
Brown appeared to make a base-running blunder when he took off to third on Beene’s grounder to deep short. But Pine Bluff’s Paul Witt had to go to a knee to field the grounder then tried unsuccessfully to get Beene at first. The Hornets, thus, had runners at the corners. Beene followed suit with a stolen base before Landers singled in Bryant’s first run.
With Beene at third, Yant delivered a towering sacrifice fly that must have gone 390 feet — a shot that would’ve been a homer in any other ballpark in the league, but was only a long out in the massive Taylor Park center field where it’s 404 feet to dead center.
The game didn’t stay tied for long, however. Larry Barnes and Anderson smacked back-to-back doubles off the wall in left to open the bottom of the third. Barnes had to hold up at third, though, when Anderson’s shot had a chance to be caught by Landers in left. Nevertheless, Witt singled in the run.
With runners at the corners and no one out, Harper visited with McClellan who regained his stride and retired the next three to keep it a one-run ballgame.
And the effort paid off, too, when the Hornets took the lead in the top of the fourth. Consecutive singles by Kris Kuykendall, Rose, Caldwell and Brown pushed two runs home to make it 4-3. What proved to be the decisive run scored when Brown drew a wild pick-off throw to first by Anderson and Caldwell raced home from second.
But nothing was certain yet. Kell singled to start the bottom of the inning only to have Yant gun him down as he tried to swipe second. Henry then reached on a third-strike wild pitch. Matt Forestiere then chased him to third with a double to left-center.
But, again, McClellan dug down and got out of the jam, retiring Pine Bluff’s big guns, Barnes and Anderson.
Witt singled to start the fifth. An out later, so did Reed. McClellan then issued just his second walk of the game to Lewis to load the bases and on came Yant.
The significance of a conference win on the road against a highly-touted rival was not lost on the Hornets.
“This means a whole lot to us,” said Fitts of the victory. “Pine Bluff is real good, a lot better than they were last year. They’ve got some sticks.”
“A great ego booster,” Yant added. “I think this will help us a lot against Texarkana next (Friday) and movin’ on. This has just shot our team straight up. I believe this is the level we need to be at to win conference.”
“We talked before the game and I told the team, ‘It doesn’t matter what we did in the past, whether we’re 0-20 or 20-0, It matters what you do in conference and that’s what we’re playing for from here on out,’” recalled Harper. “We’ve got seven games and four people are going to stay at home (from the State Tournament) and we don’t want to be one of them. That’s what we’re playing for, that’s why we played such a tough schedule early. We didn’t want to be surprised once we got into our conference, which is one of the toughest in the state.”
The Hornets are scheduled to host Texarkana this Friday. Weather permitting, the game will be their first at Ashley Park in over a month.
