CONWAY -- Texarkana, displaying uncommon resilience, defeated Bryant twice Sunday to win the AAA American Legion state tournament at Hendrix College.
Texarkana had to battle out of the losers' bracket after being shutout by Bryant 10-0 on Saturday, staying alive by winning an elimination game against Little Rock late Saturday night.
All the Razorbacks had to do Sunday was beat Bryant twice after losing to the BlackSox by 10 runs less than 24 hours before.
"We had to win two, and Bryant hasn't lost two in a row all season," Texarkana Coach Dane Peavy said. "We talked about doing the impossible. People say you can't do that, but we did today."
Neither team is done playing, with the Southern Regional coming to Little Rock in two weeks, and Arkansas, as the host state, gets two berths.
Texarkana will open against the Mississippi champion. Bryant will take on the Kansas champ.
The Razorbacks (33-3) never had it easy Sunday, rallying in both games before posting victories of 6-4 and 9-7.
Bryant Coach Darren Hurt credited Texarkana with a spirited comeback.
"They came out firing, but we knew they would," he said. "They did a good job against us."
Texarkana has won four of the last seven senior Legion state titles, Bryant (26-9-1) has the other three.
The tournament's deciding game was made necessary when Texarkana beat Bryant 6-4 in Sunday's first game, rallying from a three-run deficit behind ace pitcher Patrick Flanagan, who went 8 2/3 innings.
Bryant came out swinging in the second game against Texarkana starter Austin Stubber.
The Black Sox scored four runs in the bottom of the first, mixing a walk, a hit batsman, a wild pitch, a balk and a two-run double by Jordan Gentry.
Stubber, a right-hander from Prescott, allowed one more run before being removed in the sixth after reaching his pitch count.
Texarkana, aided by 3 errors, scored 6 runs on 5 hits in the top of the fourth off Bryant starter Beau Bonvillain.
"We played well, except for that six-run inning," Hurt said. "It's hard to survive that."
Matt Goodheart, Will Smith, Nick Myers, Parker Ribble, Beau Burson, Logan Vidrine and Riley Orr all had hits in the inning.
Rain and lightning stopped the second game for 2 hours, 4 minutes, and Bryant was ready when the game resumed.
Garrett Misenheimer singled and scored on a grounder by Gentry, his third RBI of the day, to make it 6-5 Texarkana.
The Razorbacks came back with three runs in the bottom of the fifth, keyed by Boyd's two-run double and a RBI single by Hall.
Bryant made it 9-7 in the top of the sixth after Beau Burson relieved Stubber with two outs. There were three walks, an error and an RBI single by Misenheimer.
But Burson, a 17-year-old right-hander from Magnolia, settled down to pitch three scoreless innings to pick up the save.
Sports on 07/25/2016