RSS Feed
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Travelers finish fourth in semi-pro world series The Thomasville Travelers ventured over to Hattiesburg, Mississippi this past week to participate in the American Semi-Pro Baseball Association World Series. Beginning on Thursday, July 19, the Hub- City played host to nine teams from four states seeking the title. Teams qualifying for the double elimination event came from Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. The Travelers opened play on Thursday night against the Memphis, Tennessee Royals defeating the boys from the Home of the Blues 6-0. In this one the Travelers took advantage of some erratic pitching the first two innings of the game to jump out to a 5-0 lead and then relied on good pitching and defense to secure the win. On offense the Travelers picked up five hits led by Patrick Weaver with two. Mike Harrell, Lance Ingram, and Tanner Williams followed him with one apiece. Ingram and Weaver had the only extrabase hits with each connecting on a double. Williams led the team in RBIs with two followed by Harrell with one. Briggs Bishop got the call on the mound and responded with a seven inning complete game victory. In the game he allowed five hits, one walk and hit one batter while striking out six in a shutout. The Travelers continued play on Friday, July 20, playing their second opponent from the Volunteer state, the Chester County Diamond Kats. Despite another outstanding pitching performance and great defensive effort the Travelers left Smokey Harrington Park this time as a I-0 loser. Bradley Parnell, who was tagged with the loss for the Travelers, went the distance on the mound pitching six innings in which he allowed one run on three hits and three walks while striking out three. At the plate the Travelers out hit their opponents recording four hits. Mike Harrell, Lance Ingram, Matthew Sparks and Tanner Williams each had one hit in the game with Harrell slugging a double for the only extra-base hit. With their record in the Tournament standing at 1 and 1 heading into Saturday, July 21, the Travelers found themselves matched up with yet another Tennessee team in an elimination game. This time their opponents, the Columbia Curve, hailed from Columbia, Tennessee. With things knotted at 4-4 after the third inning, things suddenly changed drastically in the top of the fourth when the Travelers exploded for 13 runs to take a 17-4 lead. What made the sudden change even more unbelievable was that all 13 runs were scored after the first two batters in the inning had made an out. In that one half inning all nine Traveler batters came to the plate twice with sixteen at bats coming after two outs. In plating the 13 runs the Travelers used four walks, one hit batsman and ten hits. Offensively in the game the Travelers picked up 15 total hits with Judd McWain leading the way with three. Following close behind him with two each were teammates; Mike Harrell, Kevin Orso, Dame Soloman, Patrick Weaver and Tanner Williams. Joining the hit parade with one apiece were; Lance Ingram and Matthew Sparks. In the extrabase hit category, Ingram and McWain each had a homerun while Soloman, Weaver and Williams all had a double. McWain with four and Ingram with three were the RBI leaders followed by Orso, Weaver and Williams with two and Harrell, Chris Owes and Soloman with one. Robert Malone got the start on the mound for the Travelers and pitched two innings in which he allowed two runs on four hits and two walks while striking out two. Keith West came on in the third and pitched the next two innings of what turned out to be only a four-inning contest. In his two innings of work he allowed two runs on three hits and one walk to pick up the win. In what was to be their final game of the tournament the Travelers lost to the Mississippi Athletics 5-1 in a final four match up on Sunday, July 22. The game was very reminiscent to their other loss in the tournament when a lack of getting a timely hit with runners in scoring position proved to be their down fall. Will Buford, who was charged with the loss, started on the mound for the Travelers pitching 4 1/3 innings in which he allowed two runs on three hits and three walks while striking out three. Jeff Middleton worked the final 2 2/3 innings allowing three runs on three hits, one walk and one hit batsman while striking out one. On offense the Travelers were limited to five hits with Judd McWain, Chris Owes, Dame Soloman, Matthew Sparks, and Tanner Williams each recording one. Owes with a Triple and Soloman with a double had the only extra-base hits and Owes had the only RBI.
At last report from the series, the Hattiesburg Black Sox had eliminated the Chester County Diamond Kats in their elimination game on Sunday with a 4-0 win and were playing the Mississippi Athletics for the championship.
|
for larger version       |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
