LaFayette All-Stars capture 11-year-old Dizzy Dean title
The 11-year-old LaFayette All-Stars captured the recent 2016 Dizzy Dean District 1 baseball championship in Fort Oglethorpe.
LaFayette opened the tournament with a win over Trion and continued rolling with a win over the LFO Cannons in the winners’ bracket final.
However, LFO bounced back to advance through the elimination bracket to the championship where they defeated LaFayette to force a second game for the title.
But the Cannons could not pull off the sweep as LaFayette claimed the “if game” victory to win the championship and advance to the 11-year-old sanctioned North Georgia State Tournament. That tournament is scheduled to start this weekend in Powder Spring.
The 7-year-old district tournament in Whitfield County saw the LFO Thunder defeat Whitfield (Rawlings) in the championship.
LFO won the matchup against Whitfield in the winners’ bracket final, but lost in the first championship game as Whitfield forced an “if game” for the title.
LaFayette’s 7-yearold All-Stars had a solid tournament run. After beating Trion in their opener, they dropped a game to LFO to fall to the elimination bracket.
LaFayette won two straight elimination games over Murray County and Gordon County to stay alive. However, they would lose to Whitfield in the elimination bracket final.
The Trion All-Stars took care of business at home to win the 9-yearold tournament title in Trion.
Summerville, who lost their opening round game, won four straight elimination games, including a win over Trion in the championship game, to force an “if game”. However, Trion bounced back to win the decisive game and claim the championship.
The North Georgia Spartans, who beat Summerville in their opener, lost to Trion and Summerville in consecutive game to be eliminated.
And in Rossville, the Trion All-Stars defeated the Rossville Outlaws to win the championship in the 13 and
14-year-old division.
The 5-year-old district tournament was held this past weekend in Chickamauga with the Boynton Barons claiming the title in come-from-behind fashion in the title game.
Facing the Chickamauga All-Stars in Sunday afternoon’s final, Chickamauga jumped out to an 11-4 lead after the top of the second inning, determined to win the game and force a winner-take-all game later in the day for all the marbles.
But the Barons came storming back over the next few innings. They scored 21 of the game’s next 22 runs, showing off some solid defense, to take a 25-12 lead after four innings with just two innings left to play.
Chickamauga would score their allotted seven runs in the top of the frame, but needing just two runs to mathematically end the game, Boynton plated the final two tallies to claim a 27-19 victory and the district title.
The 6, 8, 10 and 12year-old district tournaments also got started this past weekend and were scheduled to hold championship games on Monday and/or Tuesday of this week. Due to newspaper deadlines, results of those games were not available as of press time.
Fort Oglethorpe will play host to the 7-year-old sanctioned North Georgia State Tournament, beginning on Friday of this week, while Bremen will host the invitational event.
Canton will host both the sanctioned and invitational North Georgia State Tournaments for the 9-yearold, also beginning on Friday, while the 14-year-old North Georgia State Tournament (sanctioned only) will begin this weekend in Sandy Springs.
The rest of the North Georgia State Tournaments will begin on June 30 and July 1.
The District 1 softball tournaments were also recently in Gordon County.
Only two tournaments were held. Bartow County won the 8U championship, while Summerville won the 10U title.
No Walker County teams competed in any of the softball tournaments.