Drillers to open tourney tonight

The El Dorado Drillers have spent much of this summer challenging themselves by playing against older competition.

Now they hope that experience will aid them as they begin postseason play.

On Monday night, the Drillers (10-10-1) take on Little Rock in the opening round of the Arkansas American Legion Junior State tournament.

Game time is set for 8 p.m. from Sheridan.

The matchup is a familiar one for the Drillers.

“Of course, every team we're going to face is going to be salty,” Drillers coach Greg Harrison said. “We definitely need to show up ready to win every ballgame. We've played Little Rock every year since we brought Legion back up seven years ago. They were a zone matchup for several years before we had the zone realignment, but over the past couple of years, we've fared well against them, so we're definitely going to show up confident ready to win a ballgame Monday.”

Although the Drillers enter the state tournament on a three-game losing streak, Harrison believes his team has played well down the stretch.

“Some teams that we've played have actually been senior teams,” Harrison said. “They ended up having to play the makeup of the rainout from the Crossett Tournament, which was against the (El Dorado) Oilers in the championship game, so it was definitely something special to actually see our two teams make it to the championship game and face each other.

“When we played in the Texarkana Tournament, our one loss was to a 19-and-under team in Lake Hamilton, but their 15U and 17U are going to be in the state tournament. We had their 19U team down going into the last inning, but they executed a few situations where their experience definitely played in their favor.

“I know we've had a tough slide, however, we've played some really tough teams. Sheridan is always going to be a tough ballgame every time we walk out there. We split with Texarkana two weeks ago, and they're a good team.

“They won state two years ago. Texarkana tied Bryant the weekend prior at a tournament at Fort Smith, and Bryant won state last year, so we know we can play with Texarkana, we know we can play with Sheridan, so we're walking into next week with the confidence that we're one of the best teams out there. We're walking in there ready to win the whole thing.”

Playing against more seasoned opponents this summer should also be beneficial.

“I think it's definitely going to make them tournament ready,” Harrison said. “We've had to go in with pitching matchups in order to put ourselves in the best position to win, so our guys are going to be tournament ready knowing that they've played tougher competition.

“I know our record is 10-10-1, but that record is deceiving based off of the caliber of competition that we've played against. We've played (Arkansas) Pulpwood 19U, Crossett 19U, Lake Hamilton 19U, the Oilers, who are 19U as well, so about half of our losses that we have this year are against 19U programs.”

Harrison said he believes the Drillers are very capable of making a deep run.

“We feel very confident,” Harrison said. “The thing is that we want to make sure that we save a lot of our pitching because we're going to have games everyday, so we're going to have to be smart whenever it comes to our pitching matchups. We want to make sure we keep everybody sharp.”

For the Drillers to have

success, Harrison said it will come down to two factors.

“It will definitely be pitching and defense,” Harrison said. “We are blessed with quite a few arms on our staff, so whenever it comes to tournament play, you have to always keep the pitch count into consideration. We definitely don’t want to go out there and burn a couple of arms in the first couple of games because with each win will come a tougher opponent in the next game, so we need to walk out on the field ready and focused to win that ballgame, but at the same time, we can’t burn up all of our resources for the future games we’ll have as well. It’s going to be something that the better defense we can play, the more efficient we can be as a ballclub, and the better opportunity we’ll have to keep the pitch count down. If we can have quality pitching, be efficient, play sound defense, back up our pitchers, then we know that our offense will take care of the rest.”