Baseball: Bentonville loses lead, wins game

BENTONVILLE -- Paul Rouse's two-out single in the bottom of the seventh inning gave Bentonville a 5-4 walk-off win against Fort Smith Southside on Tuesday in 7A-West Conference baseball action.

Rouse singled up the middle off reliever Christian Brasher to score pinch-runner Jared Hines from second base as the Tigers won the first game of the conference doubleheader at the Tiger Athletic Complex.

7A-West Baseball

Game 1

Bentonville 5, FS Southside 4

Southside^000^100^3^—^4^5^2

Bentonville^000^022^1^—^5^5^1

Harpenau, C. Brasher (7) and Demondesert; Ford, Scroggins (7) and Bratspies. W-Scroggins, 1-0. L-C. Brasher, 0-1. SV-None. HR-Bentonville, Ford (1).

Game 2

FS Southside 12, Bentonville 2 (5)

Southside^(12)00^00^—^12^17^0

Bentonville^020^00^—^2^5^3

Reeves and Demondesert; Rosales, Werner (1), Young (1), Hearn (4). W-Reeves. L-Rosales. Sv-None. HR-None.

The Tigers (6-5, 2-2 7A-West) squandered a 4-1 lead in the top of the seventh inning, but rallied for the win in the home half of the inning by playing small-ball. Kasey Ford, who earlier in the game gave the Tigers a 2-1 lead on a two-run home run over the right-field fence, led off the seventh inning by reaching on an error.

Blake Werner tried twice to get a sacrifice bunt down to move Hines, who was running for Ford, to second base to set up the potential winning run. But twice Werner missed and was in the box with two strikes before laying down a gutsy two-strike bunt to move the runner.

"Blake is an outstanding bunter," Bentonville coach Todd Abbott said. "There was no doubt in our mind we wanted the bunt and Blake let us know up there at the plate, 'I'm going to do this. I'm going to get it done with two strikes.' What more can you ask as a coach? You have a kid get up there and say 'I'm going to get this done right here with two strikes.'"

Rouse got a 3-1 pitch he could drive back up the middle and Hines scored standing up as caps and gloves were tossed in the air in celebration in the Bentonville dugout.

The Tigers almost let the game slip away after seemingly being in command in a game that featured two of the league's top starting pitchers -- Ford, a Kansas State verbal commit, and Southside senior Ty Harpenau, who has signed with Texas Tech.

Ford dominated early, striking out the side looking in the first and two more in the third and fourth innings. Harpenau was just as dominant, allowing just one hit over the first four innings with seven strikeouts.

"You have to give both pitchers credit, I thought they batted well," Southside coach Craig Jones said. "Both gave their teams a chance to win the ballgame."

Southside (9-5, 2-2) led 1-0 into the bottom of the fifth inning when Ford changed that with one swing. Jones said the pitch was an outside fastball that tailed back over the plate, and Ford got all of it for his first home run of the season.

The Tigers added two more runs in the sixth on a Southside error, a single and a beautifully executed squeeze bunt that scored Rouse from third. Another run came across on a sacrifice fly from Matt Bratspies and a 4-1 lead that seemed to be more than enough.

It wasn't. Ford gave up a lead-off single to Andrew Barley to open the top of the seventh inning and appeared to labor after that. A walk and error loaded the bases, and all three touched the dish on a wild pitch and two passed balls, tying the score at 4-4 and ending Ford's day after 114 pitches. Southside narrowly missed taking the lead on Brasher's hit down the first base line that was ruled foul by inches before Tiger reliever Cody Scroggins (1-0) worked out of the jam.

"I thought we had that base hit down the line, but on the road you are probably not going to get that call," Jones said. "And we didn't get it, but that's what it is sometimes when you play on the road."

That set the stage for Bentonville's walk-off win in the bottom of the inning.

"Kasey got tired and sometimes in that situation you try to throw harder, instead of just backing off and pitching to contact," Abbott said. "He ran out of gas, but he battled for us today."

Game 2

The Rebels exploded for 12 runs in the first inning to salvage a split, pounding out 17 hits.

Christian Brasher had two triples and three RBIs to lead Southside. Tanner Wiley also had a triple and three RBIs for the Rebels.

The Tigers managed just five hits off Southside's Dalton Reeves, led by doubles from Werner and Ben Nordin.

Sports on 04/01/2015

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