Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
District tourneys set in area River Valley report
District tournaments begin this week with baseball and softball entering the final innings of the season.
The most competitive tournaments will be held in Cedarville where the 3A-4 district tournament begins on Tuesday.
The conference was divided into North and South divisions with only games against division opponents used for seedings into the district tournament.
Danville is the top seed from the South just ahead of Booneville with both teams splitting their series but Danville owning the head-to-head on run differential. Paris is the top seed from the North in baseball just ahead of Hackett with both teams also splitting their series but Paris winning the run differential in head-tohead games. Danville and Paris receive byes into the semifinals and a berth in the regional tournament in two weeks.
Paris senior Duke Walker has been one of the top players in the conference both on the mound and at the plate.
In 18 innings, he’s struck out 36. His fastball touches 90.
“It’s a lot of fun when you have the confidence in a guy like him,” Paris coach Josh Hart said. “He can eat up five, six, seven innings.”
Walker is hitting .481, scored 29 runs, hit a pair of homers and stolen 18 bases.
Walker had originally committed to play baseball at Missouri but decided on the junior college route instead and will play at Allen Community College in Kansas. Allen is part of the touted Jayhawk League.
“I felt like JUCO would be the best route for me to get better,” Walker said. “I can play one year and hopefully get drafted. If not, play two years and go D-1.”
Walker was All-State in football and started on the basketball team in addition to his outstanding baseball season. He considered running track as well.
“I thought about it, but didn’t,” Walker said. “That’s a lot to do.”
In softball, Booneville blitzed the field in the South, beating Cossatot River, Waldron and Danville by a combined 103-5 margin. Hackett was almost as impressive in the North with six run-rule wins over Paris, Cedarville and Charleston by a combined 83-3 count behind freshman Makenzie Freeman and her five perfect games on the season.
In the one meeting outside the division this season, Hackett beat Booneville, 1-0, on a onehitter by Freeman in a pitching duel against Lexi Franklin.
Championship games will be held on Friday.
VAN BUREN Fleet-footed catcher
Connor Brady is not the usual catcher.
In Tuesday’s sweep of Vilonia, Brady had a firstinning triple to drive in Malachi Henry for Van Buren’s first run.
Brady looked at thirdbase coach and head coach Luke Weatherford as he rounded first.
“A triple for a catcher is pretty nice,” Brady said. “I didn’t know. I was going to second and picking up Coach Weatherford, and he was telling me to go, so I was like let’s do it.”
Brady also made two outstanding defensive plays, catching difficult foul pop ups in the 7-5 win.
In the nightcap, Brady was 3-for-4 with a double and two runs scored, and drove in five runs. He defied the usual catcher bias again with a stolen base.
Brady has been on fire of late with 14 hits in last 31 atbats and knocked in 14 runs. He’s had a hit in nine of Van Buren’s last 10 games.
“I’ve been hitting a lot in the cage and just trying to stay with it,” Brady said. “Baseball’s a hard sport. If you’re successful three out of 10 times, that’s a good number for baseball.”
The 6-2, 195 senior has committed to Eastern Oklahoma State College and will likely be a pitcher. He’s thrown 19 2/3 innings for the Pointers with 26 strikeouts and a 3.96 earned run average, but he’s needed more behind the plate for the defending Class 5A state champions.
Van Buren travels to Siloam Springs for a conference doubleheader on Tuesday.
The Pointers and Greenbrier are currently tied atop the conference standings.
NORTHSIDE-SOUTHSIDE Rivalry time
Northside and Southside met for the first time in softball this season on Saturday in nonconference game.
In baseball, the two will play the second game against each other on April 30 at 1 p.m. at Forsgren Field.
Northside romped past Southside, 12-2, in five innings at Hunt’s Park in the first game between the two teams.
History says, though, that the easy win for the Grizzlies two weeks ago doesn’t mean much when the two teams play again.
The two teams have been playing each other since they started baseball in 1990.
In 1995, Southside blanked Northside, 13
0, in early March in a nonconference game behind a no-hitter by Brooks Israel. In the conference opener later in March, Southside squeezed past Northside, 4-3. Then in the conference finale, Northside won, 14-12, in a 10-inning slugfest.
In soccer, Northside plays at Southside on May 9 for the only meeting between the two schools.
Next season, Northside and Southside will be reunited in the 6A-West in the new two-year conference alignment cycle.
ALMA-GREENWOOD Rivalry night
Baseball and softball doubleheaders between the two rivals will be played on Tuesday at Alma.
Both twinbills are big in the 5A-West standings.
For baseball, Greenwood is in a three-way mix behind Van Buren and Greenbrier for the third and fourth seeds in the Class 5A state tournament. Alma, though, has not been eliminated with games against Greenwood and Mountain Home remaining.
Greenwood lost a doubleheader at Mountain Home this past week while Alma lost a pair to Greenbrier.
In softball, Alma and Greenwood are tied for second with 7-3 conference records just a game behind Van Buren, which surged to sole possession at the top with the doubleheader sweep of Vilonia on Tuesday.
SOUTHSIDE Rally time
The Mavericks rallied for a dramatic, 8-7, win at Arvest Ballpark in Springdale over Har-Ber on Tuesday in the opener of the home-andaway series.
Southside limited Razorback signee Cooper Dossett to just 3-2/3 innings before departing after throwing 99 pitches.
“We wanted to have good at-bats and put balls in play and play defense,” Southside coach Dale Harpenau said. “At the same time, we wanted to swing at stuff in the strike zone. We wanted him to work harder and tried to increase his pitch count. I was really proud of the guys. We really had a good time with that.”
Luke Jackson, a lefthanded hitting catcher, belted an opposite-field tworun home run in the top of the seventh inning to force extra innings.
Speedster Zeb Allen walked, moved to second on Cannon England’s sacrifice but and scored on a throwing error on Braxton Waller’s infield single for the decisive run. Bailey Mattingly earned the win with 1 2/3 innings of hitless relief.
“They got down early and continued to battle to get ourselves back in the ball game and found a way to win it late,” Harpenau said.
Southside fell to HarBer on Thursday, 3-1, at Forsgren Field, but did receive notification that the Mavericks will receive a forfeit victory over Rogers Heritage, which exceeded the pitch count for the starting pitcher in an 8-4 win last week.
The Arkansas Activities Association sent official notification to both teams on Friday.
A ball to Duncan Cravens on an 0-2 count in the sixth inning was not recorded by Heritage. Then in the seventh inning, he pitched to David Sorg when he had already reached the maximum 110 pitches.
“You can finish an atbat, but you can’t start a new batter at 110 pitches,” Harpenau said. “We had him at 110, and they had him at 109. Of course, now games are streamed and it’s easy to go back and look.”
That win puts Southside at 5-5 in the conference behind Rogers and Springdale Har-Ber and a game ahead of Fayetteville and Bentonville.
Southside plays Bentonville West at home on Monday and away on Tuesday. The next week, Southside plays Springdale at home on Monday and away on Tuesday.
SPRING FLINGS
Northside’s 6A-Central makeup baseball game at home against Little Rock Southwest will be played on May 5. … In a battle of the two fastest runners in the state, Northside’s Damari Smith outdueled Carson Tucker of Bentonville with a winning time of 10.69 in the 100-meter dash just ahead of Tucker’s 10.95 at the McDonald’s Relays at Southside on Thursday. … Van Buren’s Pedro Rodriguez scored his 8th hat trick of the season in a 5-3 win over Greenbrier last week and has eclipsed the 30-goal plateau for the season.