July 8, 2014 ♦ PULASKI CITIZEN ♦ A11www.pulaskicitizen.com

» GILES 9’s, A9

championship with an 8-7 win in Piney Bluff, Sunday afternoon.

Putnam took the lead in the fi rst inning with two

opening runs, but Giles’ four-run second helped the team pull back ahead by a three-run margin.

Putnam spent the next four innings rallying be-fore fi nally pulling even at

six in the top of the fi fth inning.

However, Clay Mitchell provided the game-win-ner for the second time this postseason with an RBI triple to take the lead.

He later scored to make it 8-6 in favor of Giles.

That run would prove crucial in the sixth and fi nal inning, as Putnam scored a run and put the potential game-winning

run on base after an er-ror and a walk with two outs. A pop out ended the threat, though, and sealed the championship for Giles.

Donat ions for the

team’s trip to the South-east Regional can be made at First National Bank to the Giles County Cal Ripken 9U All-Stars. For more information,contact Allison Cardin.

GC 9’s Take Home Third-Straight State Championship

by Mark MizeSTAFF WRITER

Pulaski’s American Le-gion Post 60 U19 team fell one game shy of reach-ing the fi nals of a regional American Legion tourna-ment held in Columbia this weekend.

The tournament, which featured teams from nine different states, from In-diana to Texas, was host-ed by Columbia Post 18 and featured three recent American state champions, as well as a pair of teams which have won national championship in the last few years.

Pulaski played an exhibi-tion against a Texas Ameri-can Legion squad before

winning two of three games in pool play to advance to the knockout stage.

Pulaski’s initial knockout stage opponent for the quarterfi nals, Tupelo, Miss., chose to forfeit, clinching the local team’s spot in the semifi nals against defend-ing state champ and rival Columbia.

The loss to Columbia ended Pulaski’s tournament run, but head coach Fred Aymett said he was proud of his team after the loss and the way they competed against the top-fl ight com-petition.

Pulaski 7Dupage, Ill., 2A quality start from

pitcher David McRae and a four-run sixth at the plate,

American Legion Post 60 Makes Semifi nals in Columbiahelped Pulaski’s American Legion Post 60 take the opening game of the Co-lumbia American Legion Tournament 7-2 over Du-page, Ill., Thursday.

The game, which served as the fi rst of group play for Pulaski, proved to be a back-and-forth affair early on with Pulaski taking a one-run advantage in both the fi rst and third innings only to see Dupage rally to tie the game on each occasion.

First baseman Graham Conner’s double to the right fi eld gap scored A.J. Pettus, who initially reached on a one-out walk, to open the scoring on the day. D. McRae gave up the only earned run for Pulaski in the bottom of the frame but set-tled down to hold Dupage to only one unearned run over the next four innings. He picked up the win on the mound with his fi ve-inning performance, allowing just six hits and striking out four batters.

Pulaski put together a strong opening perfor-mance on offense with 12 hits, but struggled to cash in on run-scoring opportunities early on, as the team left nine runners on base in the fi rst fi ve in-nings alone. Pitching and defense kept Pulaski in the game, though, and Logan Phifer’s RBI single to right gave Pulaski a 3-2 lead in the top of the fourth that it

would not surrender.Controversy struck in

the top of the sixth when a big inning by Pulaski was stunted by a bizarre mistake from the umpiring crew in which the inning was called after only two outs. The of-fi cial scorer and the Pulaski coaching staff argued the mistake but to no avail, as the umpires had apparently fallen victim to a mistake by the scoreboard operator.

Nonetheless, Pulaski was still able to pick up four important insurance runs, including back-to-back RBI doubles to the wall by Con-ner and Ben Hargrove. Con-ner led his team offensively with a 2-for-3 outing with two doubles, two RBIs, a walk and a run scored. Har-grove was 3-for-3 on the day with a double, two RBIs, a walk and a run, as well.

Pitcher Zack Gordon came in to relieve D. McRae in the bottom of the sixth and threw two innings of no-hit baseball to secure the tournament opener by the fi ve-run margin.

Pulaski 12Newburg, Ind., 7Pulaski clinched a spot in

the knockout round Satur-day thanks to a 12-7 victory Friday over Newburg, Ind., in the early afternoon game of pool play.

Ace Ben Hargrove started for Pulaski in the victory before being relieved by Zack Gordon who picked

up the win on the mound. Hargrove’s greatest impact came at the plate, though, where he turned a one-run lead into a fi ve-run margin with one swing of the bat in the sixth with a Grand Slam. Pulaski had initially trailed 4-0 before scoring all 12 of its runs in the fourth, fi fth and sixth innings.

Logan Phifer went 3-for-3 at the plate, reached base in all four of his at-bats and scored three runs for his team. Hargrove also reached base three times and scored three runs along with his Grand Slam, while Graham Conner also scored twice.

Pulaski 5Pontotoc, Miss., 13Pulaski was handed its

first loss of the regional tournament in the night cap of Friday’s pool-play double header with a 13-5 defeat at the hands of Pon-totoc, Miss.

Pontotoc jumped out to an early 8-0 lead with all eight runs coming in a second inning in which the team sent 12 men to the plate.

Thomas Davidson came around to score in the third, and Pulaski mustered a four-run fi fth behind base hits from Carl Parker, Gar-

Jordan Osborne proudly displays her state championship trophy. The previous week at the AIM state championships, Osborne shot her fi rst perfect score of 100 to claim high overall sub-junior state champion and was named to the Academic All-State team at the SCTP State Championship. JOHNNY PHELPS / PULASKI CITIZEN

The Richland Jr. Varsity Trap Team wins the SCTP State Championship. Jarius Danell won high overall runner-up. The team members (from left, fi rst row) are: Riley Frye, Jordan Osborne, Chuck Teeples, (second row) Tristan Turner, Jesse Reed, Jarius Darnell, (not pictured) Sam Hanvy, Zach Hillis. JOHNNY PHELPS / PULASKI CITIZEN

Logan Phifer throws the ball to the plate versus Shelbyville June 25. TIM NAVE / WWW.TNPIX.COM

Ben Hargrove swings away at a ball at Richland School. Hargrove hit a Grand Slam in his team’s 12-7 win against Newburg, Ind. TIM NAVE / WWW.TNPIX.COM

rett Miller and Graham Conner, but Pontotoc add-ed fi ve funs of its own to post the eight-run victory.

Davidson, Parker, Zack Gordon, Miller and Conner each scored runs in the loss for Pulaski.

Pulaski 0Columbia 13Pulaski was unable to

overcome a dominant of-fensive performance by Columbia in a 13-0 loss at Dave Hall Field on the cam-pus of Columbia State in the tournament semifi nal Sunday.

Starting pitcher Garrett Miller set down the side in order in the top of the fi rst inning and picked up a pair of strikeouts in the process. However, Columbia put together an 11-run sec-ond inning against Miller and fellow pitcher William McRae to take a lead that it would not relinquish, as it won 13-0, its sixth win over Pulaski this season.

Graham Conner and Drew Abernathy each sin-gled in the loss, while David McRae struck out a pair of batters in a perfect inning.

The final between Co-lumbia and Pontotoc fea-tured the only two teams which had defeated Pulaski in the tournament.

Clay Mitchell is the hero after delivering his second game-winning hit. TIM NAVE / WWW.TNPIX.COM Gage Haley slides into second base in the district tournament. TIM NAVE / WWW.TNPIX.COM

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