The Summit-McComb 11-year-old All-Star game on Sunday night was one for the ages.
Nine innings, three different pitchers for each team and a win in Summit’s final at-bat.
Dustin Brock collected the game-winning hit in the bottom of the ninth as Zack McDaniel scored from third. The run made it 6-5 and bumped McComb into the loser’s bracket.
“I’ve never played a full nine-inning game before,” Brock said. “I’m pumped up and can’t wait to play (McComb) in the championship.”
Summit may get a chance to do just that, but first it must get through tonight’s game at 8. McComb plays at 6 tonight in an elimination game.
Neither teams’ pitcher gave up much from the sixth inning on. Matt McElveen didn’t face more than four hitters in an inning from the fifth until the ninth, when he walked the leadoff hitter and was promptly lifted from the game.
Camp Newcomb entered in a more precarious circumstance. With the tying run on second and one out, Newcomb was brought in to replace Brock Roberts.
Brady Lea welcomed Newcomb with a double into the right-center field gap to tie the game. With Lea on second Newcomb struck out the next hitter and forced a popup for the third out.
McComb put runners in scoring position in the seventh and ninth, but Newcomb pitched out of the jam both times.
“I was just trying to hit my corners and use my little curveball,” Newcomb said. “When I’d get behind I’d just throw that curveball and they’d swing.”
Newcomb coerced a weak grounder in the seventh and a check swing strikeout in the ninth to escape unscathed.
For all the scoring the two teams had done coming into Sunday’s game, an error-filled fourth by McComb allowed Summit to score four runs.
Brock doubled up the middle to drive in two runs and later scored the fourth run for Summit. Tanner Whittington scored Summit’s fifth run later in the fourth. Jackson Cole scored the first run of the game in the bottom of the first on a wild pitch.
McComb had two runs in both the second and the sixth. Matt McElveen drove in a run with the infield in the second and T.J. Johnson walked to push in another run later that inning. Matthew Artigues doubled to drive in Logan Morel in the fifth before Lea and James Green pushed over runs for McComb to tie the game in the sixth.
