Alabama Tigers 15U

In the Tigers 2nd tournament, the BPA fall championship, all looked well after pool play. Playing on the short field was playing havik with our balls & strikes and probably was not too good for us, but our pitchers were fighting through it. In the EARLY game 1 vs. the Decatur River Rats Brandon sailed through the first inning with 2 strikeouts, but runs were hard to come by as we left several runners on base. Uncharacteristic sloppy defense and a walk or two later the Tigers had themselves in a 6-1 hole. Brandon battled without his best stuff and kept us in the game. Then the big rally, coming up with 6 runs in the 5th inning, capped by a huge 3 run homer by Chris. Johnny came on and nailed things down for the save, giving Brandon and the Tigers the win, 7-6. A bunch of guys hit the ball well, led by Chris's 3 for 3 and Justin's 2 while Travis, Brandon, Cameron, Todd and Colby added 1 hit each.

On to G2 vs. the Birmingham Storm. Chris got the start and was throwing BBs from pitch one! The defense seemed to solidify in game 2 and the Tigers came up with some big hits at the right time, as Travis, Logan and Justin all had multi-hit games. Chris, Johnny, Brandon, Cameron and Colby all jumped in with hits.  The Storm never did catch up with Chris, who got the complete game victory, and the Tigers took the 7-2 win and the number one seed into Sunday's semi-finals.

In the semis the Tigers faced the Storm for the second time in a row. One of those "it doesn't pay to get out of bed" games struck. Not a lot went right. The defense played their worst game, 3 different pitchers couldn't find the plate, and when they did the Storm hit it. The Tigers dug a huge hole early and could not recover. On the bright side, Chris parked homer number two for the tournament, a towering monster shot in the bushes way back, as the Tigers showed real guts in a late 5 run rally that came up short. Cameron, Todd, Chris and Logan had multi-hit games while Travis, Brandon, Johnny and Colby added to the hit totals. The loss sent the boys to the AAA championship game, which all knows is really the 3rd place game, and gut check time.

After a 4 1/2 hour wait, the Tigers took on the Stingers behind Justin on the mound. The Tigers seemed to have the bounce back and looked much better all around. Justin pitched great but the Tigers were a bit slow to get the sticks going. Things stayed low scoring and close through 2 innings but the Tigers broke out after that and pulled away, winning the AAA Championship . Justin got the win a little help from Chris who closed things out with the final scoreless inning. 3-1 in the 12-4 win to take the Hardware, not what we came for but we'll take it! Some guys really tore it up at the plate, with Logan going 4 for 4, Chris 3 for 3, Travis 3 for 4 and Colby 2 for 3.  Brandon and Johnny also had hits in the game. I was very proud to see the boys jump into the AAA game and play as hard as they would have in the Major, shows a lot of pride and desire. Well done.