By By BRUCE HIXON Sports Editor
East Brewton Little League teams may have won the majority of regular season games against their Brewton counterparts at the Age 9-10 level, but Brewton teams reversed that trend in Monday's quarterfinal round of the City Tournament.
The Brewton Athletics earned their place in the semifinals with an 11-5 triumph over the East Brewton Braves, while the Brewton Cardinals upended the East Brewton Athletics 11-7.
Play continued Tuesday with the semifinal games. The top-seeded East Brewton Cubs battled the Brewton Athletics, while the second-seeded Brewton Braves battled the East Brewton Cardinals. Both the Cubs and Braves had byes in the quarterfinal round.
Tuesday's winners will play for the championship at 5:30 p.m.
Athletics (B) 11, Braves (EB) 5
The Athletics overcame a bit of a shaky start and a Braves rally in the middle innings before they pulled away for the win.
The Braves took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning thanks to an error and an RBI double by Keith Bradley.
That lead did not last long, as the Athletics muscled up for four runs in the bottom of the first inning and took the lead for good.
Collin Graves had an RBI double and Collin Langford ripped an RBI triple to spark that rally. William Whittle also had an extra base hit, a double, in the uprising.
Langford continued to be a big thorn in the Braves side as the game progressed. He hit his second RBI triple in as many innings in the second inning, as the Athletics extended their lead to 6-2.
The Braves seemed to weather that storm. They got a two-run single by Hayden Cooper in the third inning and an RBI single by Joshua Tompkins in the top of the fourth inning that cut the deficit to just 6-5.
Just when the momentum seemed to be switching, Langford gave it back to the Athletics in the bottom of the fourth inning with a two-run RBI single that made it 8-5.
Graves had the other big bat for the winners, as he came up with his second RBI hit of the game in a three-run fifth inning that knocked the lead up to 11-5.
Langford, Louis Miller and Graves combined for a four-hitter and 11 strikeouts. Each went two innings.
Cardinals (B) 11,
Athletics (EB) 7
The Brewton Cardinals came into the game as the lowest seed (sixth) in the tournament, but that did not prevent them from upending the East Brewton Athletics.
The Cardinals took control of the game in the first two innings when they built an 8-1 lead. The big blow of the game was a six-run second inning, which featured a two-run homer by Ricky Curry.
The Cardinals had just one other hit in the game, a single by Wes Maddox. The Redbirds got most of their offense through 12 walks issued by Athletics pitchers.
Meanwhile Cardinals pither Shawn Odom tossed a one-hitter. The lone hit he gave up was a single by Dylan Godwin.
The Athletics also got an RBI from both Brewer Grimes and Brian Settles.