Tiger Bats Cool Off

PRAIRIE GROVE — Day Two of the first Jarren Sorters Memorial Baseball Tournament held at Rieff Park in Prairie Grove saw Ozark dominate Prairie Grove batters in a 4-1 loss sustained by the Tigers.

The defeat didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of Tiger skipper Chris Mileham, who organized the tournament as a bi-annual event as a fundraiser for the Play4Jarren Foundation, a non- profit Christian organization. Mileham sang praises of a community heavily involved in supporting local athletics.

“If you’re coaching in Prairie Grove and you want something, people will get it for you,” Mileham said.

Mileham likes the new scoreboard, which was updated manually by volunteers every inning. A host of volunteers, not all of them local, helped put on the tournament. Mileham explained the Tigers travel every other year during spring break and played in a tournament at Arizona last season.

“We plan on hosting this biannual Jarren Sorters Memorial Baseball Tournament to benefit the Play4Jarren Foundation,” Mileham said. “As far as who we have here, it’s kind of a cross-district, with teams from the 4A-1 (Prairie Grove, Gentry and Pea Ridge) and teams from the 4A-4 (Booneville and Ozark) kind of what you might see at a Regional.”

Mileham said from the teams he has seen, nobody is 100 percent healthy and everybody wants more at-bats as each team faces the same challenges in preparation for the upcoming district play.

Ozark starter Dakota Cowens had a no- hitter going until Tiger senior Michael Hutsell hit a two-out single in the fifth inning and that might not have been a hit except for the raised foot of the pitcher allowing the ball to travel past the mound.

“He had good stuff out of the gate,” Mileham said. “He pounded the zone and did all of the stuff good pitchers do.”

Cowens aided his cause at the plate with a pair of RBI singles in the first and third innings. He singled in the first inning to plate Eddie Graham, who led off the game with a walk then stole second. In the third inning, Cowens drove in Dougan Phillips after he pounded a triple into right-center field. The second inning ended with a fly-out and the Tigers trailing, 2- 0. Ozark added another run in the top of the sixth after a leadoff walk and sacrifice fly.

Prairie Grove would get their second hit in the sixth on Couper Allen’s leadoff single down the third base line, but Allen was left stranded. The next three batters were retired by a fly-out, strike-out and ground-out. Ozark scored a fourth run in the seventh with an RBI single into right field.

Clay Fidler and Austin Jentzsch began the Tigers’ last at-bat with consecutive walks, but Cole Speed struck out and Hutsell hit into a fielder’s choice bringing up another out at second. With runners at the corners, Cole Simmons reached on an error and Fidler scored to narrow the gap to 4-1. The game ended with runners at the corners on a strike-out.

“We were bound to cool off,” Mileham said of the Tigers’ batting slump. “We started off hot.”