Looking for a comeback : Fayetteville winless in Day 1 of Premier Championship

By David Showers

Posted: July 30, 2009 at 6:42 a.m.

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FAYETTEVILLE — The Fayetteville C.R. Crawford Bulldogs can still qualify for the winners' bracket in the Premier Baseball 16 & Under National Championships despite going winless in Wednesday's pool play round.

A win over the Dallas Mustangs this morning in their final pool play game will send the Bulldogs through to the winners' bracket. Fayetteville tied its first game Wednesday at Harmon Field. The 2-2 stalemate against the Austin Wings was followed by a 10-2 run-rule defeat to the Houston Heat.

The Bulldogs, made up of Fayetteville High sophomores and juniors, are one of 40 teams vying for a spot in Friday's championship game at Baum Stadium. The tournament is contested over three days on nine area diamonds.

The Heat took advantage of nine walks issued by three Fayetteville pitchers and six errors to run rule the Bulldogs in six innings. Thanks to their discerning eye at the plate, they suffered no strikeouts in their 28 plate appearances.

"We can't give up free passes," said Scott Williams, one of the Bulldogs' two head coaches. "It just kills you, because you put yourself in a hole. ... Then we had six errors. Those are the kind of things that are hard to overcome." Three second-inning walkssparked the Heat's six-run second. When they weren't taking pitches, the Heat's left-handed heavy lineup consistently found the outfield gaps with line drive hits. Josh May's two-run single to the right-centerfield gap gave the Heat a 3-0 lead, and Travis Gauntt sustained the rally with a two-run double to the left-center-field gap.

Jacob West's leadoff triple in the Fayetteville fourth set the table for the Bulldogs' first run. The slicing liner trundled into the left field corner, allowing West to be driven home by a Jacob Pinter single.

The Bulldogs added another run in their half of the fifth on a Matt McEver RBI single, but runs were hard to come by against Heat pitchers Zach Speer andAlex Brown. Speer retired seven straight during the first through third innings before giving way to Brown.

A hard-throwing right hander, Brown struck out three of the six batters he faced.

Fayetteville's defense wreaked havoc with the Austin Wings' running game during the first round of pool play at Harmon Field.

Devan Williams negated a leadoff walk and a single with a pair of deft pick-off moves in the second inning. Williams and J.T. Finley combined to limit the Wings to three hits and two walks.

They benefited from solid play behind them. West ran down atailing liner in left field during the Austin third, leading to an unconventional 7-4-6 double play when he spied the Wings' base runner straying too far from the bag at second.

Catcher Conner Roberts also blunted the Wings' aggressiveness on the base paths. He threw out a runner attempting to steal second in the Austin fifth.

"We played sound defense in the field," said Scott Gallagher, the Bulldogs' other head coach. "We picked a couple of guys off and threw a guy out stealing. That kept us out of some big innings. We played well defensively. They probably would've scored a couple of more runs if we hadn't."

Sean Williams supplied the entirety of Fayetteville's offense, plating Landon Summers and West with a two-run single in the first inning.

Fayetteville concludes pool play today at 10 a.m. against the Dallas Mustangs.

Sports, Pages 7, 8 on 07/30/2009

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