The Emporia A-16 Gold team went 1-1 in its first two games at its Zone tournament on Thursday at Garnett and will now need two victories today to advance to Saturday’s championship game.
The Gold got an easy 17-7 victory over Garnett to open Zone play, earning the run-rule win in just four innings. Emporia had 11 hits and showed some plate discipline, drawing 10 walks. Jackson Perez had a triple for the Gold, Chase Speer went 2-for-3 with a walk and drove in three runs, Brett McEvoy went 1-for-2 with an RBI and walked twice, and Daniel Finch drove in two runs and had a double, finishing 1-for-3 with a walk. A 10-run second inning put the Gold well on its way, and they added three in the third and two in the fourth.
“They booted the ball a lot,” Gold coach Alex Reyes said, “but yeah, we had some good hits.”
Chase Speer pitched all four innings on the mound, striking out two.
Ottawa defeated the Gold later Thursday evening by a 10-6 score. Emporia fell behind 7-0 in the first two innings and couldn’t recover, despite putting up consecutive three-run innings in its half of the third and fourth to pull within 7-6. Emporia had seven hits but couldn’t sufficiently capitalize on five Ottawa errors. Alex Benjamin pitched for the Gold and went all seven innings, taking the loss.
The Zone tournament is double elimination. The Gold play Garnett again today at 6 p.m. If Emporia wins, it will take on Ottawa again. If the Gold win that game, it will have to beat Ottawa a second time in Saturday’s title game.
“They’re a beatable team,” Reyes said of Ottawa. “They’re a good ballclub. They came out aggressive... but we played really well actually today. I was pretty pleased, and we’ve just gotta continue to play well, or we’re gonna go home.”
Reyes said Finch would start on the mound today against Garnett.
“We’ve had a few days off and had him throw a couple of innings the other day in our scrimmage for practice, so he should be good to go,” Reyes said.
If the Gold reach the game against Ottawa today, the starting pitcher will likely be either McEvoy or Nic Hrabik.