MARIETTA,
Ga. – The St. Louis Gamers 15u Blue (4-0) continued their winning
ways on Sunday afternoon, beating the Ohio Force (1-2) 4-3 at the
East Cobb Complex in a Pool P matchup of the 2012 WWBA 15u National
Championship.
In
the early going, things looked less than favorable for the Gamers as
the Force scored two first-inning runs, the first on a suicide
squeeze which was followed by a towering solo home run over the left
field wall by Noah Heard. Undeterred by this early deficit, the
Gamers responded with a three spot in their half of the first to take
the lead.
After
surrendering that lead, the Gamers inched ahead and broke a tie game
via a Brady Anderson bases-loaded walk in the fourth.
Right-hander
Anthony Passante, who entered in relief of starter Cody Birdsong,
earned the victory for the Gamers in spite of walking in the
game-tying run in the second. He tossed six scoreless frames of
three-hit ball with three strikeouts. Passante worked out of a
two-out jam in the seventh by inducing a Ronnie Murphy groundout to
third base to end the game.
Gamers
head coach Dave Pregon said the team has been doing enough to win but
still has room for improvement.
“The
team’s been playing well, Pregon said. “We’ve been doing what
we need to do to get it done. We got a lot of guys starting to swing
the bat a little bit so once we start putting a string of hits
together we should do pretty well in this tournament.”
Pregon
is in his first year with this group of players, but has been with
the organization since helping found it in 2007. The Gamers call
All-Star Performance in south St. Louis, Mo., their base of
operations.
Traveling
to give these young players exposure is nothing new for Pregon and
the organization.
“These
players are going to be competing against a lot of these guys in the
next three-four years at the college level,” Pregon said. “The
point is to show this group what they got to go up against and how
hard they got to work to get there.”
The
Gamers will resume to action on Monday against Georgia Select 15u at
North Cobb Christian School in Kennesaw, Ga.