SHOCKWAVE Baseball

The Shockwave 11U and 13U teams both worked their way through talented fields, playing six days of baseball and advancing to the quarterfinals to place fourth in their division. The 11U team finished with an overall record of 4-2 and the 13U team finished at 5-2-1.  

“We played well the entire tournament and ended up with the best finish for the South Carolina teams,” Shockwave 13U Manager Aubrey Heflin said Friday. “We hit the ball and we had 13 consecutive innings of shutout baseball today so our pitching and defense also came through. We came up a little short of our goal, but we played our best, outplayed several very talented teams and left it all on the field so it was great experience.”

The 13U team outscored its opponents 53-36. The Shockwave went 3-0-1 in pool play, defeating the Cincinnati Sharks 10-2, West Cobb (GA) Huskies 5-2 and Sandy Springs (GA) Longhorns 9-1 and battling for a 4-4 tie with the Mid-State (PA) Mavericks.  The Shockwave earned the No. 3 seed for its 17-team division after allowing the fewest runs, nine.

The team defeated the Sandy Springs Longhorns 15-10 to open bracket play and then fell to the undefeated Effingham (GA) Long Horns by a 10-7 score to set up a show down Friday with the Carolina Fury out of Moncks Corner. The game was a defensive battle that went two extra innings. Shockwave pitcher JD Waite threw nine superb innings to earn the win.

Miles Goodwin led off the bottom of the ninth inning for the Shockwave with a double down the third-base line. He moved to second when the Fury decided to put Nick Bell on base rather than pitch to him and to third on a sacrifice bunt by Brian Doucet. The Fury then walked Adam Blocker to load the bases. The stalemate was broken two batters later when Tradd Pearson plated Goodwin with a single for a 1-0 Shockwave win.

That advanced the team into the quarterfinals, where it fell 7-2 to the Sandy Plains (GA) Wildcats. The Shockwave took a 2-0 lead when Grande Fender drove in Doucet in the bottom of the fourth. However the lead, and the momentum, shifted on a controversial play in the fifth. The Wildcats tied the game off two singles and a walk and then Travis Wildermuth was awarded a homerun that the Shockwave coaches and several fans thought should have been a triple.

The Shockwave right fielder picked the ball up and returned it to the infield to hold Wildermuth to three bases, but after some conversation between coaches and the umpire, the umpire ruled that the ball bounced off the scoreboard and then back into the field of play. The play resulted in a 4-2 Wildcat lead.

“It seems like if it hit a metal scoreboard, we would have heard it,” Heflin said. “That had to be one of the hardest calls I’ve ever had to accept, but that’s part of baseball.”

John Kirk earned two wins on the mound for the Shockwave during the tournament and Bell also earned a win. Waite and Goodwin led the team’s batters with averages in the .600 range. Other members of the team are Austin Morgan, Joel Roberts, Johnston McCurry, Hayden Heflin and John Kirk.

The Wildcats went on to defeat the Carolina Mets out of Puerto Rico twice in the finals to win the 13U Championship. The tournament was the final event of the season for the Shockwave, which earned two SC-USSSA Tournament Championships and a third-place finish at the Smoltz-Grissom Wood Bat Classic in Atlanta, Ga. this year.

The 11U Shockwave outscored its opponents 62-48 in the tournament. The team went 3-0 in pool play, defeating the Mt. Pleasant All-stars 14-13, Charleston Braves 12-2 and Cincinnati Sharks National (OH) 13-5 to earn the top seed for its six-team division. In bracket play, the team lost to the Charleston Braves 7-5, defeated the Cincinnati Sharks National 13-12 and lost to the Mt. Pleasant All-stars 9-5 in the quarterfinals to place fourth.

Bradley McLaughlin earned two wins on the mound for the Shockwave and Zachary Heaton earned a win. McLaughlin and Joshua Litchfield both finished the tournament with a batting average over .600.  McLaughlin had five homeruns in the tournament while Stokes Brownlee, Mark Hopkins, Sawyer Bridges, Richie Elias and Zachary Heaton also had dingers. Other members of the team are James Knowles, Chadwick Wood, Dillon Salisbury, Danny Rowland and Cole King.

Next up for the 11U Shockwave is the Lexington Summer Nationals July 25-27 in Lexington. This will be the finale of the team’s season.

Contact Roger Lee @ 873-9424 ext. 213 or rlee@journalscene.com.