Starkville 9-year-olds reach championship round

COLUMBUS – With their backs against the wall on Saturday, the Starkville 9-yearold All-Stars have to win three-straight games to take home the Dizzy Dean East state championship and are off to a good start.

Louisville was the first opponent on the comeback tour as the Starkville 9's knocked off their opponents from Winston County for the second time this week. A 13-3 win in five innings was enough to put Newton County on notice for today.

“We played about as well as we could possibly play,” Starkville coach Reggie Little said. “As a coaching staff, we kind of decided before the game that we were going to play to win the whole thing starting on Saturday. We threw all of our best pitchers 20 pitches each and they all did well.”

Starkville exploded early with six runs in the first inning to take over the game right away. Though Louisville scored three runs in the second, that would be the only punch it landed for the entire game.

Starkville answered back with two runs in the bottom of the second and three in the third to put the game away.

A total of 15 hits were tallied by the 9's led by Julian Kracker's three-hit afternoon. Lucian Walker went 2-for-2 with three walks, three runs scored and three RBI. Blake Little and Cason Sanders also had two hits with Miller Shy finishing with three RBI as well.

On the mound, there was plenty of teamwork as well. Walker started the game and threw an inning, Little threw 0.2 innings, Kracker threw 1.2 hitless innings with two strikeouts and Blake Jones and Torian Knox finished the game with 1.2 scoreless frames.

Spreading the pitching out could work to Starkville's advantage today.

“We've got everybody ready to go (today),” Little said.

Newton County handed Starkville its only loss of the tournament on Friday with a 16-0 blowout in four innings.

Little and his staff are aware of the challenge Newton County bring today.

“They're a really good team,” Little said. “A lot of their team is made up of a very good AAA travel ball team. They've got pretty much everybody left except for one pitcher so it'll basically be about who can pitch it the best. It'll be a really good game.”

Propst Park in Columbus will be the site of the championship round later today with game one at 2 p.m. Starkville will have to win the first game to force a game two and a championship matchup.