Starkville ages 6, 12 Dizzy Dean teams win
Starkville All-Stars get late cushion to ensure stay in winner's bracket
Saturday's game against the Newton County All-Stars was too close for comfort for the Starkville All-Stars at the 12-year-old South State Tournament.
After holding a slim edge of 5-3 at the end of three innings of play, Starkville scored three more runs in the fourth to provide separation and won an 8-3 decision at McKee Park.
“It was a close ball game the first three innings or so,” Starkville coach Russ McReynolds said. “We finally opened it up a little bit, got some hits, started hitting the ball hard and scored a couple of runs to help us and
give us a little bit of a cushion right there.”
With the win, Starkville remained in the winner's bracket of the event and play Caledonia today at 1:30 p.m.
Starkville got off to a 4-0 start by scoring one run in the first inning and three more in the second.
Ethan Pulliam singled, advanced to third base on a wild pitch and scored on a balk call by the umpire in the first inning.
In the second, Eli Dale had a one-out double for Starkville, then he advanced to third on a wild pitch. Dale scored on a sacrifice fly by
Justin Ming. Starkville got
two mores runs in the frame when Garrett Carson and Zack Harris scored. Carson was hit by a pitch and Harris had a ground-rule double.
McReynolds was happy to see his players respond at the plate. Dale and Harris led the offense with a double and single each. Brennon Wright had two singles and drove in a run.
“Eli Dale hit the ball extremely well and hit it very hard,” McReynolds said. “It was good to see him come around and do that. Zack Harris had two base hits. He's really hitting the baseball well right now.”
After Newton County scored three runs in the third to tighten up the game at 4-3, Starkville answered with one run in the fourth. Xavier Prater
singled and pinch-runner Jack
Ruth scored on a Dale RBI single.
Harris singled and scored, Wright singled and scored, and Drew Williams walked and scored to give Starkville its 8-3 advantage in the fourth.
Starkville used three pitchers in the game as Carson started and was relieved by Mac McReynolds and Ming.
Coach McReynolds was happy to see Ming get some outs after being used in the 20-3 win over Louisville on Thursday.
“Justin was able to come
back and finish that last inning for us,” coach McReynolds said. “As far as pitching is concerned, we've still got essentially everybody available.”
McReynolds likes the position his All-Stars find themselves, but said now is not the time to be complacent with Caledonia next up.
“It was a good effort (on Saturday), but still some things we've got to work on,” McReynolds said. “We need to stay focused on the small things and give a lot of effort there, but we're getting there and playing well.”