Summer vacation and a baseball tournament ended for the Southwest Mississippi 14-year-old All-Stars on Monday.
Southwest watched a 6-2 lead slowly vanish and ended up dropping a 10-8 decision to host Bryant, Ark., in the 14-year-olds Babe Ruth Baseball Southwest Regional Tournament.
Southwest hitters stranded 12 runners on base in the season-ending loss, leaving the bases loaded in the fourth and fifth innings.
“When we got up 6-2 and started leaving all those runners, it really bothered me,” Southwest manager Will Terrell said. “Bryant was used to coming from behind. They’ve been doing it all tournament.”
It happened again Monday, as Bryant took advantage of two singles, three walks issued by Southwest pitching and two Southwest fielding errors to plate four runs in the sixth and take the lead for good.
Bryant added an insurance run in the top of the seventh.
Brady Badon took the mound loss for Southwest. After pitching two scoreless innings in Southwest’s 15-4 win over Little Rock on Sunday, Badon pitched to just three batters Monday, walking all three.
“He did a good job for us in the tournament,” Terrell said of Badon. “He just got tired.
“Brady just couldn’t find the strike zone,” Terrell added. “The umpire was tightening the strike zone and we weren’t getting the corners called like we were early.”
Unfortunately for Southwest, that allowed the Bryant batters to tee off on reliever Randy Bell for four hits and two runs over the final two innings.
Gage Posey started for Southwest and pitched five innings. He surrendered five runs on six hits, walked five and struck out four.
Trailing 2-0, Southwest seemingly grabbed control with a six-run bottom of the second inning.
After Bell and Brandon Canny singled to open the inning and Tyler Stutzman walked to load the bases, Dante Bradbury also coaxed a walk to force in Bell and cut the margin to 2-1.
One out later, Justin Brent singled to score Canny and Stutzman to give Southwest a 3-2 lead.
With two out, a Bryant throwing error allowed Brent and Bradbury to advance to second and third, respectively. Marquis Lewis followed with a single that plated both runners to make it 5-2.
After Posey reached on a throwing error, Bell, batting for the second time in the inning, singled in Lewis to make it 6-2.
But Bryant chipped away at the deficit, scoring two in the top of the third to slice the margin to 6-4.
A Bryant run in the top of the fourth made it a one-run game, 6-5, and set up Bryant’s comeback.
After Bryant took its lead in the top of the sixth, Southwest tried to rally.
Canny walked to lead off the frame and scored on pinch hitter Jacob Fleming’s double to the left-center field gap.
Fleming moved to third on consecutive infield groundouts, then scored when Tanner Parvin’s grounder was misplayed by the Bryant shortstop for an error.
Despite his team falling short, Terrell said the Southwest All-Stars never folded.
“They never quit,” he said. “They never dropped their heads and said that was it. This was a scrappy team.”
