SEMINOLE, Texas — With a 4-2 win over the host Seminole, Texas All-Stars, the Bryant All-Stars advanced to the winners’ bracket final of the 2019 Cal Ripken Southwest Regional tournament on Friday. They’re set to return to action on Saturday at 5 p.m. With a win, they’ll move on to the championship round.
A three-run fourth snapped a 1-1 tie and Bryant held off a sixth-inning rally by Seminole to extract the victory.
The 10’s, coached by Greg Riggs, include Blake Brower, Cannon Chalmers, Carson Dozier, Jackson Duran, Jake Elliott, Drake Fikes, Gunner Frazier, Austin Hastings, Cooper Hatman, Hunter Markham, Paxton Pringle, Jaxon Riggs, Drew Tate-Lee and Jackson Trusty.
Brower pitched five innings, allowing two runs on five hits with a walk and five strikeouts. Tate-Lee came on in the sixth to get the last three outs after Seminole scored one.
A walk and a single started the inning and Tate-Lee relieved. He picked off the runner at first as the runner at third stole home. But, with no one left aboard, Bryant retired the next two on grounders to Riggs at short and Brower at second to close it out.
After getting runners to first and third but not scoring in the bottom of the first, Bryant scratched out a run to take the lead initially in the bottom of the second. Hastings led off with a walk, advanced to second on a wild pitch, went to third on a grounder to the right side by Tate-Lee and, with two down, scored on a passed ball.
Brower and the Bryant defense, meanwhile, set down the first nine Seminole batters. In the fourth, however, a lead-off double snapped that streak. A wild pitch and a single to left tied the game.
Bryant’s game-breaking uprising in the bottom of the fourth started with a single to right by Brower. With Duran in as a courtesy runner, Hatman belted a double to left. Hastings got a bunt down on the squeeze play, but Duran was thrown out at the plate.
Tate-Lee kept the rally going with a walk and, after a pitching change, Frazier drew a free pass that force in the go-ahead run. Dozier followed with a pinch-hit double that drove in two.
Seminole managed a lead-off single in the top of the fifth but the next three were set down. Riggs led off the home fifth with a single but Bryant was unable to take on setting up the dramatic finish.
