Emporia A-16 Gold coach Alex Reyes proved to be a genius motivator in the Gold’s fourth game of the Zone tournament on Friday in Garnett.
The Gold were clinging to a 4-3 lead over Ottawa entering the top of the seventh inning. A victory meant the Gold would play Ottawa again today for the championship; a loss meant the end of Emporia’s season. The Gold needed insurance runs, and Reyes found a dynamite way to generate those: he simply told his players to go get them.
The Gold responded with a 12-run explosion in the seventh and went on to win in a 16-5 run-rule shellacking to earn another date with Ottawa in today’s 1 p.m. Zone championship game.
Ten of the Gold’s seventh-inning runs came with two outs. The first two runs came off the bat of Brett McEvoy, who worked a full count before drilling a one-out, two-run triple to make it 6-3. After that, Emporia got RBI singles from Tanner Page, Jackson Perez and Chase Speer and a two-run double from Brady Marstall. Daniel Finch and Alex Benjamin drew walks to force in runs during the inning.
Right before the seventh, Reyes said the magic words, telling the Gold to get at least a couple more runs to support starting pitcher Nic Hrabik.
“I guess they listened and put up a 12-spot,” he said.
Perez went 3-for-5 with a double, and Page and Marstall each went 2-for-4 with a walk. The Gold had 10 hits and benefited from eight Ottawa errors.
Hrabik went all seven innings on the mound, surrendering 10 hits and striking out one.
“He got himself out of the jams,” Reyes said. “... Hrabik got in a couple jams with a couple runners on base with less than two outs, and he worked himself out of it by either striking out a kid or getting a kid to pop up, or a ground ball, and not allowing very many runs to score, obviously.”
The victory avenged the Gold’s 10-6 loss to Ottawa during Thursday’s first-day action of the double-elimination Zone tourney. Now, they’ll have to do it again this afternoon.
“I’m sure Ottawa’s gonna bring their A-game,” Reyes said. “Since they beat us the first time, they’re gonna think they can beat us again. And having all these runs hopefully carries over for tomorrow (and) the kids continue to swing the bat as well as they did today.”
Earlier Friday, the Gold clubbed host team Garnett for the second time in as many days, scoring 12 in the first two innings en route to a five-inning, 15-4 win. Page and Perez each went 2-for-4, McEvoy was 2-for-2 with a double and two walks and Marstall was 2-for-3 with a base on balls. Finch completed the game on the mound, striking out seven while giving up six hits and walking four in five innings of work.
Emporia made just one error in each game despite playing on an all-dirt infield for the first time all year.
“We looked like a different team (than Thursday), I guess,” Reyes said of the win over Ottawa. “Even the umpires said it: we brought a different team today. And it was nice to see how well the kids played today. I guess they didn’t want to go home.”
Friday at Garnett
Emporia 15, Garnett 4
Emporia 570 03 — 15 12 1
Garnett 200 20 — 4 6 1
WP — Finch.
2B — EMP: McEvoy, Weatherred.
Emporia 16, Ottawa 5
Emporia 003 010 (12) — 16 10 1
Ottawa 100 020 2 — 5 10 8
WP — Hrabik.
2B — EMP: Perez, Page, Weatherred, Marstall. 3B — EMP: McEvoy.