AMERICAN LEGION STATE TOURNAMENT
BRYANT 5, FORT SMITH 3
CONWAY -- After hitting into an unlikely double play earlier in Monday's American Legion Senior State Tournament game, Cade Drennan found a seventh-inning double more to his liking.
Drennan drove in three runs in his final two at-bats in leading the Bryant Blacksox to a 5-3 victory over the Fort Smith Sportsmen at Hendrix College.
Bryant won twice on Monday to advance to tonight's championship against Sheridan. The Blacksox must defeat Sheridan twice to repeat as state champions.
Blanked for five innings by the Sportsmen's Evan Jones, the Blacksox finally broke through for a run on Drennan's one-out line drive back through the middle. In the seventh, Drennan crushed a first-pitch offering from reliever Ben Klutts down the right-field line for a two-run double.
"Cade has been squaring everything up," said Bryant Manager Darren Hurt, whose team has won four consecutive games after a tournament-opening loss to Fort Smith on Friday. "Everything they throw, he hits it hard."
Two solid pitching efforts by Logan Grant and Will McEntire have Bryant back in the finals. Earlier in the day, Grant tossed a six-hitter to lead Bryant to an 11-3 victory over the Little Rock Vipers. McEntire threw six shutout innings against the Sportsmen, allowing six hits. He also struck out five and walked only one.
"Oh, man, they did a great job," Drennan said of the efforts by Grant and McEntire. "They were getting batters to work, getting easy outs. They did everything they could do to help us win."
Singles by Logan Catton and Jake Wright to start the fourth inning gave Bryant a chance to break a scoreless tie, and when Drennan sent a deep fly ball into the left-center gap, the Blacksox seemed poised to score. Fort Smith left fielder Cash Balentine, however, caught Drennan's fly ball on the run and threw back to second to double off Catton.
"That was really disappointing," said Drennan who drove in a combined five runs in Monday's two games. "I thought that thing was going to fall for sure."
The double play was the third that Bryant had hit into in the first four innings.
"I thought it was down too," Hurt said of Drennan's fourth-inning fly ball. "Everybody was running and the ball just hung up out there. The kid made a good play."
Jones worked around five hits in the first four innings. He finished with three strikeouts and five walks.
"Evan pitched a great game and he did so well," Sportsmen Manager Trey Prieur said. "Just a play here and there. They played their tails off."
Fort Smith scored three runs in the seventh, getting run-scoring singles from Jake Melton, Balentine and Klutts.
Catton helped stop the Fort Smith rally by starting a double play, snagging Brock Thibodeaux's hot grounder, touching third base for a force out and throwing out Thibodeaux at first.
Myers Buck finished off the save when he got Mac Moody to hit into a game-ending force out.
BRYANT 11, LITTLE ROCK 3
Bryant scored five runs in each of the first two innings on its way to a victory over Little Rock Vipers in Monday's first elimination game.
Winning pitcher Logan Grant worked 6 innings, striking out 6, walking 4 and giving up six hits. Scott Schmidt used only six pitches in the seventh inning to close out the victory.
Drennan, Buck and Coby Greiner all drove in two runs each for the Blacksox.
The first five Bryant batters in the first and second innings reached and scored as the Blacksox opened up a 10-1 advantage.
Bryant started the game with singles by Logan Chambers and Logan Catton, an RBI triple by Jake Wright and singles from Drennan and Buck.
The game's biggest controversy came in the second inning when the Vipers originally thought they had turned a triple play. With an 8-1 lead and the bases loaded, Bryant's Matthew Sandidge hit a line drive to first baseman Shelby Quiggens, who dropped the ball. Quiggens threw the ball home for an apparent force out. Runners at second and third were also called out.
After the play, the umpires ruled that Quiggens had caught Sandidge's liner and sent the runners back to their original bases. Bryant added two more runs in the inning when Peyton Dillon drew a bases-loaded walk and on an infield grounder by Greiner.
Quiggens, Andrew Howard and Nick Jones all drove in runs for the Vipers.
Sports on 07/31/2018