The rain held off long enough this past weekend in McKinney for Dallas Tigers 12U Polk to get the championship match up with 13U Team Mizuno. The game was a battle with Team Mizuno throwing a fire baller at the Tigers.
“We faced 2 hard throwers last weekend, but what we saw tonight definitely had more velocity. And he was throwing his breaking ball for strikes,” said coach Chad Polk. “Our kids battled and got some barrels on him and from the pitchers reaction he wasn’t used to that.”
Tigers jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning and Team Mizuno came back to tie it up in the 3rd. In the 4th Mizuno took a 3-2 lead. Then bottom of the 4th, left handed hitting Jared Thomas leads off with a rocket double down the right field line. Thomas advances to 3rd on passed ball and Jonah McCormack hits a deep sac fly to bring in the tying run to make it 3-3. Next batter, Jayson Jones, walks and the clean-up hitter, Josh Hoover, hits a deep fly ball off right field fence for a double but Jones is thrown out at 3rd trying to advance. Now with a runner on second, 2 outs, and 2-0 count on Owen Peck the umpires suspend the game into rain delay!
“I didn’t get that …it has just started raining and we are a pitch away from either winning the game or inning over for clean stopping point for a rain delay,” said coach Polk.
Regardless, after the rain delay the tournament director called the tournament. Because of #1 seed status for the Dallas Tigers they were awarded the Champions trophy.
Polk ended saying this, “Hey, I’m proud of our guys and that’s a big momentum booster for our team! Physically we were overmatched by older kids and the guy on the mound was the best we’ve seen. Our hitters showed me something tonight. As for our pitchers, they were great all weekend, but what Walker Polk and Josh Hoover did tonight was exactly what gutty hard-nosed competitors do. They stepped up big on the mound for our team. Proud of those 2 young men and looking forward to seeing other guys do the same.”
Way to represent young men! Keep building the momentum!