Royals win 1 of 3 in tournament

The Plains Royals Babe Ruth didn’t quite finish their season as champions of the Mission Valley Tournament, but from where they started the year their improvement over the season is absolutely remarkable.

After starting the season winning only one game in the first seven, and not being competitive in the competitions the team finished the regular season going 1-1 with a close loss at home and winning one game out of three at the tournament.

“It was a complete turnaround from where they started, to the end,” say Coach Earl Crawford. “100% improvement.”

During the tournament Crawford says everyone from head coaches to the league President all remarked on the vast improvement of the team. “Everyone thought the kids were really improving a lot,” says Crawford.

At the beginning of the season the Royals had one player who had never played baseball before, Austyn Peterson,P and one player who only played once, Kolby Chisholm. By the end of the season Chisholm as the speedster on the team would chase down balls in the outfield right and left and Peterson became the most consistent hitter on the team for putting balls in play.

The tournament began on Thursday where the Royals lost to the Mission Rockies 0-10 and failed to post a hit against the hot pitching of Kolton Andrews.

“It was just a bad game on our part,” says Coach Crawford. “But, we came back the next night.”

After being sluggish in the first game, on Friday the Royals bats came alive in the fifth by scoring 11 runs to beat the Ronan Warbirds 17-9.

“We were down by six and then exploded,” says Jeremiah Crawford, pitcher and third basemen for the Royals.

The inning lasted over 20 minutes and the Royals sent 14 batters to the plate that saw 11 of them cross home plate that featured a number of extra base hits.

In the game Robert Earhart hit a home run, Jeremiah hit a triple, Jourdan Knudson hit a double and Connor Sine hit a single and a double in the game.

Earhart’s home run turned into an exciting play as he hit to the discus cage past the outfielders at Plains, rounded third base and was caught in a pickle. After jockeying back and forth with it looking like he would be tagged out the third baseman tried to throw it to the pitcher standing at home base and hit Earhart right in the back allowing him to scamper home for the home run.

On Saturday, the Royals again traveled eastward and played the Polson Griz. The Royals led after 2-1 in the top of the third inning, but the Griz scored three in the bottom of the inning to take a 4-2 lead.

The Royals clawed back to tie in the top of the fifth, but the Griz retired the last seven Plains hitters and scored two runs during the last two innings to seal the victory.

Offensively Robert hit a double, Damion Mathis hit two singles, Connor Sine hit two singles, James Rulison hit one single and Jeremiah hit two singles.

Both James and Jeremiah will play on the Mission Valley All-Star team at Mission, which will start this weekend.