By BY BRUCE HIXON – SPORTS EDITOR
When teams have made mistakes, the East Brewton Little League Age 9-10 All-Stars have made their opponents pay.
It has been that ability that has carried East Brewton to two impressive wins in the first two rounds of the District 5 Tournament held at the Brewton Area YMCA Park.
While East Brewton has had a modest 12 hits through its first two games, it has taken advantage of 20 walks, four hit batters and 11 errors by opposing defenses to rack up 26 runs in Saturday's 14-1, four-inning win over Covington County and Sunday's 12-6 triumph over Evergreen.
East Brewton met Opp Tuesday in the semifinal round of the tournament. Tuesday's winner advanced to the championship round, which gets underway Thursday at 7 p.m. If necessary, a second championship game will be Friday at 7 p.m. Tuesday's loser heads to tonight's elimination game, which starts at 7 p.m.
East Brewton 14, Covington County 1
East Brewton hurler Tyler Joyner tossed a complete game two-hitter with 10 strikeouts for the win. Joyner recorded the first nine Covington County outs by strikeouts.
Although East Brewton scored 14 runs, it only had five hits and three of those hits were infield hits. East Brewton only hit two balls out of the infield.
As it turned out, East Brewton did not need a lot of extra offensive punch, as it received six walks, three hit batsmen to go along with six Covington County errors.
East Brewton converted walks to Quantae Barksdale and Michael Williams into runs and a 2-0 lead it never relinquished.
Covington County committed five errors in the second inning when East Brewton tacked on four more runs and ran its lead to 6-0. Two of those errors came on one play when Williams beat out an infield single and then circled the bases on throwing miscues. Miles Powell added an RBI single in that frame.
The only blemishes against Joyner came in the bottom of the second when a triple by Rollin Kinsaul and a single by Austen Worley produced Covington County's lone run.
East Brewton sent a dozen batters to the plate in the top of the fourth when it scored eight times and ran its lead up to 14-1. East Brewton had only two hits in the rally, an infield single by Joyner and a two-run single by Barksdale. East Brewton received four walks and two hit batsmen in the inning.
At Brewton
East Brewton 240 8 – 14 5 0
Covington Co. 010 0 – 1 2 6
East Brewton 12, Evergreen 6
East Brewton scored in every inning although it nearly let a big lead slip away in the late innings.
East Brewton built a 5-0 lead over the first three innings. Miles Powell walked, stole second and scored on a triple by Michael Williams in the first. Williams later scored on an error.
Powell got a run home in the second when he hit into a double play after Nick Laster and Quantae Barksdale started the inning with walks. A double by Tyler Joyner, a single by Robin Swift, an RBI fielder's choice by Justin Sessions, a single by Dalton Shell and a bases loaded walk to Barksdale produced two more runs in the third to make it 5-0.
Barksdale threw three scoreless innings and struck out six before he and Powell were touched for a couple of runs in the top of the fourth when Evergreen cut the gap to 5-2.
A triple by Williams, an RBI single by Joyner, an error, a run-scoring wild pitch and walks to Sessions, Rob Jones, Laster and Barksdale produced three runs in the bottom of the fourth and stretched the lead to 8-2.
Evergreen batted around in the top of the fifth, as singles by Zane Lambert, Hunter Bolton and Taylor Chavers along with a walk, an error and a fielder's choice produced four runs and sliced East Brewton's lead to 8-6.
East Brewton regained the momentum and its original six-run lead when it scored four times on just one hit in the bottom of the fifth and increased the gap to 12-6. Three of the runs scored on bases loaded walks to Alex O'Keane, Barksdale and Powell.
At Brewton
Evergreen 000 240 – 6 5 5
East Brewton 212 34X - 12 7 2