Charles Peete tops BC in district final
Published 10:04 pm Wednesday, July 7, 2010
PORTSMOUTH – Bennett’s Creek’s run in the District 6 Major League (ages 11-12) Baseball Tournament came to an end in the championship game Wednesday night as Charles Peete won the tournament, finishing the tourney with a 3-0 record, with a 7-4 win over BC.
After dropping the opening game of the tournament to Churchland, Bennett’s Creek stayed alive through four straight wins in the loser’s bracket, including Tuesday’s 11-1 victory over Churchland.
In game one of what BC hoped would’ve been two games in the final against Charles Peete, the all-star team from the Portsmouth league jumped out to an early lead and held on despite two comeback attempts by BC.
“Our pitching was great again,” said BC head coach Lance Kitchens. “Our defense made a few errors in the first couple innings and then it was about us just not coming back and hitting enough, that’s what hurt us.”
Charles Peete capitalized on every chance, whether BC helped them out or not. In each of the first two innings, Charles Peete put two runners on with less than two outs and all four runners scored.
A groundout, but then an error as BC went for a play at third base, gave Charles Peete two runs in the first inning. In the second, Charles Peete scored with an RBI triple to go up 3-0 and another sacrifice groundout to make it 4-0.
The bottom of BC’s order sparked its team to get them back into the game. Eighth-place hitter Ryan Fischer tripled to the left-center field fence to start the top of the third and ninth-place hitter Nicholas Vairo singled to drive in Fischer. Ben Dearborn’s infield single scored Vairo and BC had two runners on with no outs before the rally fizzled right there.
BC pitcher Michael Blevins kept Charles Peete quiet in the third and fourth frames, but the margin remained 4-2 and Charles Peete got what turned out to be important insurance with three runs in the bottom of the fifth, again in opportunistic fashion, as all three runs scored with two outs.
BC rallied, mostly after there were already two outs, in the last half-inning. Dearborn scored on a wild pitch and Keoni Broad singled to bring in Blevins. BC got the potential tying run to the plate, but that was as far as the comeback got.
All-star teams usually don’t have a long season and BC had 10 days together before starting in the district tournament said Kitchens.
“They developed tremendously,” Kitchens said.
“They kept fighting,” said Kitchens, “they played it all the way to the end.”
Charles Peete advances as the District 6 champs to the Virginia Little League State Tournament.