By Rob Patrick
SPRINGDALE — Seniors Kaleb Jobe, Tyler Sawyer and Justin Blankenship would've loved one more crack. And this time, against a pitcher they'd seen.
And they almost got it.
Jobe was on deck and Sawyer in the hole with two down in the bottom of the seventh and a runner at third, when Hunter Mayall shot a liner to left center that appeared to be destined for a hit like he and the Bryant Hornets were beginning to appear destined for a comeback win along the lines of their mid-season thriller against Conway. The Hornets had trimmed a 7-1 deficit to 7-4 with the heart of the lineup coming up against Cabot Panthers' reliever Andrew Reynolds.
Twice, Reynolds had balked during the Bryant rally. He and the Panthers seemed to be more than a little shook.
But center fielder Joe Bryant (how's that for irony) sprinted into the gap and, with a dive, stabbed Mayall's shot to end the game — and the Hornets' season — in spectacular fashion as Panthers slipped on the proverbial glass slipper. A number five seed from the 7A-Central Conference, Cabot had knocked off Rogers, the fourth seed from the 7A-West, earlier in the day coming back from a 5-2 deficit in the sixth inning for an 8-6 win. Trumping that with the 7-4 win over Bryant, champions of the 7A-Central.[more]
All the other top seeds advanced, but all three — Fayetteville, Fort Smith Southside and Little Rock Catholic — had to eke out one-run wins. Fayetteville and Catholic had to come from behind to beat North Little Rock and Van Buren, respectively, and Southside won over Rogers Heritage in nine innings.
"Cabot was one of those teams we really didn't want to see again," acknowledged Bryant head coach Kirk Bock, noting that the two teams had split during the 7A-Central Conference season, both winning close games.
Three unearned runs wound up haunting the Hornets, who ended their season 22-8.
Their seventh inning rally began with an infield single by Blankenship and a pair of singles to right by Brennan Bullock and Tyler Brown to make it 7-2. That ended the day for Cabot's sophomore starter Cole Nicholson who had shackled the Hornets on two hits through six innings. It was the first the Hornets had seen of Nicholson despite the previous meetings.
On came Reynolds, who was the winning pitcher with six innings of relief when his team beat Bryant 6-3 then was the losing pitcher as the starter when Bryant returned the favor at home, 6-5, later in the season. His first pitch to Brady Butler skipped in the dirt and past catcher Ben Wainwright as runners moved up to second and third. Butler delivered a sacrifice fly to deep right, making it 7-3.
With Caleb Garrett, the Bryant lead-off batter, at the plate, Reynolds stumbled as he went into his wind-up. The result was a balk that allowed Brown to score. Garrett then bounced to short and drew a wild throw, allowing him to go to second as every Bryant player and fan began to recall the night that the Hornets overcame a 10-5 deficit with six runs in the bottom of the eighth to beat Conway.
With Chris Joiner at the plate, Reynolds went into the stretch and dropped the baseball. The result was another balk which allowed Garrett to advance to third.
Joiner, who had a single and a double in the game — Bryant's only hits over the first six innings — popped to third for the second out, bringing up Mayall, the team's leading hitter. On a 2-2 pitch, he made a bid to keep the game going only to be robbed with Jobe, Sawyer and Blankenship the next three due up.
"Gosh, you can only do that so many times," Bock allowed. "But we were fixing to get right to the heart of it. We believed, the kids thought it was going to be. We just didn't prepare ourselves early in the game to make a run at the end. They got too much separation."
The Hornets looked a little tight to start the game whereas Cabot had already played that day and looked more at ease. The tournament had been delayed from the Friday-Saturday start due to heavy rains, forcing the first two rounds to be played in one day. Monday was still overcast, damp and chilly. A mist fell off and on.
Bryant, thus, hadn't played in a week when the contest commenced.
"You can say, hey, it's been over a week or whatever, but that's just an excuse," Bock stated. "You've still got to come out and play. At times, we played well and, at other times, we didn't play very well at all.
"Their guy (NIcholson) did a great job of pitching. Hats off to him," he added. "I thought our kids battled all the way to the end. We've done that all year. They made some good plays and we kicked it around a couple of times and that hurt us especially late in the game."
The game was scoreless until the third inning when Cabot scratched out a pair of runs aganst Sawyer, the Bryant starter. With one out, Ty Steele doubled inside the foul line in right and Joe Bryant singled him in. A groundout to third on a hit and run by Powell Bryant had Joe Bryant at second with Drew Burks, one of the best hitters in the 7A-Central Conference, coming to the plate. Burks singled up the middle to make it 2-0.
Burks was 3-for-3 with a walk and two RBIs for the Panthers.
In the top of the fourth, Sawyer appeared to be back in the groove as he struck out Matt Turner and Reynolds. But on a 1-0 delivery, Tyler Erickson belted a solo homer to make it 3-0.
In the fifth, one-out singles by Burks and Ben Wainwright brought Bock out to change pitchers. Ben Wells walked the first batter he faced, Turner. He then got Reynolds to tap to third. Mayall tried to get the force at the plate but he was throwing back away from his momentum as he fielded the ball to his left. His throw to the plate was just out of the reach of Jobe, the catcher, and Burks slid in safely to make it 4-0.
Wells came back to strike out the next two to get out of the inning. But the Hornets just couldn't break through against Nicholson. After giving up a one-out single to Joiner in the first, Nicholson retired nine in a row before Mayall reached on an error in the fourth. In the fifth, a lead-off walk to Blankenship came to nothing for the Hornets.
In the top of the sixth, Joe Bryant walked and Powell Bryant beat out an infield hit with one down. Burks followed with an RBI single to make it 5-0. The Hornets kept it to that by turning a doubleplay.
In the bottom of the inning, Joiner pulled a double down the left-field line for the Hornets' second hit of the game. An out later, Nicholson appeared to be off the hook when Jobe popped up on the field. The windblown pop evaded second baseman Chase Thompson, however. Jobe reached and Joiner raced home to make it 5-1. But Nicholson got Sawyer to bounce to second to end the inning.
In the top of the seventh, a bloop single by Reynolds and a bouncer to center by Erickson gave the Panthers a one-out chance to add to the lead. But Nicholson bounced to second and Steele followed with a bouncer that way again. This time, though, the ball got past Brown and both pinch-runnner Josh Graham and Erickson scored to make it 7-1.
Bryant's rally ensued only to fall short.
"One game doesn't make a season," Bock asserted. "We had a good run. We ended up 22-8. I would've been close to betting 2-20 at the beginning of the year.
"We had five seniors and they all played a huge role in our success this year," added the coach. "I really enjoyed the time I had with them. I wish I could've had four years with them. They really brought a lot to the table, a lot of leadership qualities for the younger ones to follow. Changing coaches, they had to adapt to a new system and they did a good job of changing."
Cabot improved to 18-8 on the season. The Panthers were set to play against Fort Smith Southside in the semifinals on Tuesday.
CABOT 7, BRYANT 4
Panthers Hornets
ab r h bi ab r h bi
J.Bryant, cf 4 2 1 1 Garrett, cf 4 0 0 0
P.Bryant, lf 4 0 1 0 Joiner, dh 4 1 2 0
Burks, rf 3 1 3 2 Mayall, 3b 4 0 0 0
Wainwright, c 4 0 1 0 Jobe, ss-c 3 0 0 0
Turner, 1b 3 0 0 0 Wade, cr 0 0 0 0
Reynolds, dh-p 4 0 1 0 Sawyer, p-ss 3 0 0 0
Graham, pr 0 1 0 0 Blankenship, rf 2 1 1 0
Erickson, ss-2b 4 2 2 1 Bullock, lf 3 1 1 0
Nicholson, p-ss 4 0 0 0 Brown, 2b 3 1 1 1
Tyler, cr 0 0 0 0 Butler, 1b 2 0 0 1
Steele, 3b 3 1 1 0 Ellis, c 0 0 0 0
Thompson, 2b 0 0 0 0 Wells, p 0 0 0 0
Totals 33 7 10 4 Totals 28 4 5 2
Cabot 002 111 2 — 7
BRYANT 000 001 3 — 4
E—Sawyer, Jobe, Steele, Mayall, Thompson, Brown, Nicholson. DP—Bryant 1. LOB—Cabot 9, Bryant 5. 2B—Steele, Joiner. HR—Erickson. SB—Burks. SF—Butler.
ip r er h bb so
Cabot
Nicholson (W) 6 4 3 5 1 6
Reynolds 1 0 0 0 0 0
Bryant
Sawyer (L) 4.1 4 3 6 2 6
Wells 2.2 3 1 4 2 3
Nicholson faced three batters in the seventh.
Balk—Reynolds 2. WP—Nicholson, Reynolds.
