Local squads square off at WCYB tourney: Yankees down Warriors in losers’ bracket matchup
Playing in the 7- and 8-year-old division of the coach-pitch tournament, which was held at the Civic Center Complex, both the Warren County Warriors and the Warren County Yankees were ousted from the bracketed portion of the tournament last Saturday.
The Warriors edged the Bateman Lawn Bandits 13-12 in their first-round matchup Saturday, while the Yankees lost to the Brentwood Braves, 15-5.
A big second inning was key in the Warriors’ opening-round win. After their leadoff batter was retired, the team sent 12 more men to the plate, eventually scoring seven runs on seven hits.
Dalton Foster, Justin Wright, Grayson Woods, Mitchell Steiner, Dylan Barnes, Logan Underhill and David Lee all came through with hits in the frame to cut the Bandits’ early lead to a single run at 8-7.
Both teams failed to score in the third, but the Bandits plated two more runs in the fourth, only to see the Warriors take the lead with a five-run frame. Barnes, Underhill, Lee, Ben Wilson, and Kendall Rutledge all scored in the inning.
The Bandits plated two more runs in the top of the fifth, tying the game at 12-12, but Woods reached base and scored the game-winning run for the Warriors.
• The Yankees held a 4-3 lead heading into the bottom of the second inning of their matchup with the Braves, but Brentwood posted six runs in the frame to take the lead for good.
Jacq Elam, who had three hits in the game, scored in the top of the fifth, but two Brave runs in the third, three more in the fourth and a single run in the fifth gave Brentwood the win by the 10-run mercy rule.
• The Warriors moved on from their first-round win to take on the Cookeville Heat, falling by an eventually 15-9 margin after the Heat scored seven runs in the fifth inning.
The Warriors trailed 8-1 after three frames, as Cookeville plated four runs in the first, three more in the second and a single run in the third. But Warren County bounced back to tie the game at 8-8, scoring seven runs. Dylan Barnes, David Lee, Ben Wilson, Grayson Woods, Kendall Rutledge, Austin Wright and Mitchell Steiner all came around to score in the frame.
Lee scored in the top of the fifth to tie the game at 9-9, but Cookeville came through with eight hits in its half of the frame to blow the game open.
• The Warriors’ loss set them up with a local rival in the losers’ bracket, as they faced the Yankees. Both teams turned up their offenses, with the Yankees coming out on top of a 26-15 slugfest.
The Yankees came out gunning, slapping seven runs on the board thanks to hits by Tanner, Blake Carter, Elam, Newby, Hunter Chilton, Kaleb Tilton and Lee Carden. The Warriors cut the lead to 8-2 with two runs thanks to hits by Barnes, Lee, Wilson and Woods and a sacrifice from Logan Underhill.
Tanner, Barrett and Elam scored in the second to boost the Yankees’ lead, but Barnes, Underhill and Lee came across the plate in the Warrior half of the inning to make it a 10-5 game.
Tilton, Carden and York scored for the Yankees in the third, but Rutledge and Steiner came across in the bottom of the frame to make it a 13-7 game before the Yanks erupted for four more runs in the fourth inning. Newby, Chilton, Tilton and Carden all came in, and the Yankee defense held the Warriors scoreless in the bottom half of the inning.
The hits just kept on coming for the Yankees, who scored five runs in the fifth on hits by Blake Carter, Daniel Carter, Cantrell, Chilton and Carden, but the Warriors countered with a big fifth inning of their own, plating eight runs on hits by Barnes, Underhill, Wilson, Alex Walker, Woods, Foster, Steiner and Hillis.
The late surge would prove to be too late, however, as the Yankees added four more insurance runs in the sixth to end the game.
• While they had the satisfaction of ousting their local rivals, the Yankees’ run at the tournament would only last one more game, as they fell to the eventual tourney runner-up Franklin Falcons by a 20-4 final.
Blake Carter and Jacq Elam both scored in the first, as the Yankees collected five hits and took a 2-1 lead into the second inning. But the Falcons flew away with the lead in the second, belting six hits and scoring nine runs to go on top for good.
Blake Carter and Kaleb Tilton scored in the third for what would prove to be the Yankees’ only other runs, while Franklin countered with two of its own in the bottom of the third, and eight more in the fourth. The Falcons fell to the Braves in the championship, losing 14-9.