EMERSON, Ga. – In a battle to earn a bid in the 2015 WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla. at the end of October, the GBSA Rays American and the Chattanooga Cyclones faced off in the Southeast Qualifier No. 1. For the second straight year, the Cyclones trumped the field and earned their spot in Jupiter, this time with a 9-8 win over GBSA.

The game started off quickly with the Cyclones jumping out to a quick 2-0 lead in the top of the first thanks to a pair of walks by Cade Evans and Noah Hill. Evans came around to score on a wild pitch, while Hill was plated on a sacrifice fly by Joseph Hill.

GBSA rallied quickly with a two-run double down the right field line by Anthony Carrera that energized their dugout and tied the score at two.

When GBSA came back up to the plate in the top of the second they were primed to take the lead. They loaded the bases on a single and a pair of errors and took the lead on a Chandler Powell single. With the bases still loaded that set the stage for a towering grand slam home run to right field from leadoff hitter Akil Baddoo that registered 98.7 mph off the bat and made the score 7-2.

The back-and-forth game continued in the top of the third. After a leadoff single from Noah Hill, Hunter Oliver smashed a 377-foot, two-run homer to left center cutting the Rays’ lead to three runs. Not satisfied with two runs, Logan Haga delivered his own 350-foot homer that narrowed the deficit to two.

Adding to his tournament MVP resume, Oliver came up to the plate after Hill tripled and delivered an RBI single through a drawn in infield to make the score 7-6. The Rays called on their bullpen and sent in Jarred Morgan who turned an impressive barehanded 1-2-3 double play to escape the inning.

Down by one run heading to the top of the sixth Oliver once again helped ignite the Cyclones’ offense with a leadoff single and came around to score on a Caleb Collins RBI base hit to tie the game.

Cade Evans worked five scoreless innings of relief allowing just three hits and striking out two batters. Morgan countered with 3 2/3 innings of his own to force the game to extras.

In the top of the eighth Hill earned his third hit of the game and Oliver doubled to deep left field, barely missing his second homer of the game. The Rays elected to intentionally walk Haga to load the bases, which backfired when Collins earned a walk to bring in the go-ahead run. Alex Tucker delivered a big pinch hit at-bat with a hard groundball single through the left side to add a much needed insurance run.

The Cyclones brought in Noah Hill to close out the game and he did allowing a run to score on a sac fly, but preserving their victory and spot in Jupiter with a 9-8 win.

As noted, Hunter Oliver earned MVP honors for the Cyclones. He went 12-for-20 (.600) at the plate with eight extra-base hits, 10 RBI and seven runs scored. Most Valuable Pitcher honors went to Hunter Gaddis who tossed eight total innings, earned two wins, and struck out eight batters.

“Honestly it’s unbelievable.” Cyclones Head Coach George Koontz said after the game about heading back to Jupiter. “We have a couple of our frontline pitchers that were dinged up and we had a bunch of guys step up.”

Koontz specifically noted the efforts of Cade Evans who tossed five innings of scoreless relief in the Championship game but didn't want that praise to take anything away from the team as a whole.

“Everybody contributed somewhere significantly during the tournament and everybody on the roster did something great.”

A team that could win together and come up with great play after great play helped lead the Cyclones back to Jupiter.


2015 WWBA Southeast Qualifier #1 runner-up: GBSA Rays American



2015 WWBA Southeast Qualifier #1 MVP: Hunter Oliver