Area (Laurinburg) Championship: WR 9U Blue 11, North View 2

West Raleigh 9U Blue took the Area 1 Ripken championship with an 11-2 win over North View under the lights on Monday night. The teams were tied at two after the first three innings, but then the West Raleigh bats came alive to support another stellar pitching effort from the 9U Blue hurlers, as they walked just two in six innings.

Although West Raleigh did commit the first two errors of the weekend in the early innings, they tightened down the defense through the middle and late innings and made several blog-worthy plays (which is really the goal of any baseball player).

Offensively, although the bats weren’t quite as hot as they were yesterday, ten different hitters still reached base, and the baserunning—highlighted by aggressive, stellar plays from Chace and Andrew—was flawless.

“This is the first one,” Coach Sean told the team after the trophy ceremony. “We’ve got two more.”

Also, I would like to point out that as this is being written in the car on the way home, I still have an impressive collection of souvenir Laurinburg bugs flying around me, and I have a strong feeling it may take days before they are finally--if ever--eliminated. 

Championship Blue scoring plays

First inning

JT was hit by a pitch and Gavin’s fielder’s choice put runners on first and second. Chace lifted a fly ball that scored JT all the way from second and put Gavin on third. Brady’s hard shot scored Gavin to give West Raleigh back the lead.

Score after one inning: WR Blue 9U 2, North View 1

Fourth inning

Chace worked a leadoff walk and went to second on Brady’s single. Jake walked to load the bases. Back to back fielder’s choices from Andrew and Joey scored a pair, and then Andrew worked a perfectly executed steal of home.

Score after four innings: WR Blue 9U 5, North View 2

Fifth inning

Asher coaxed a leadoff walk and moved to second on a wild pitch. A fielder’s choice moved him to third, and then JT ripped an RBI single. Gavin crushed an RBI triple, and Chace scored him with a single. Brady reached on a fielder’s choice and Jake singled, setting up Andrew to blast a two-out, two-run triple.


Score after five innings: WR Blue 9U 11, North View 2

Pitching Performances

Gavin started and battled a couple defensive hiccups in his two innings.

Jake struck out the side in the third.

Asher closed it out with three perfect innings of relief.

Championship Web Gems

•    This was North View and not West Raleigh, but hey, you’ve got to give them credit—they turned a triple play in the second inning and even did it off a ground ball rather than the somewhat “easier” method of doing it off a line drive.

•    Asher, Gavin and Chace teamed up on a big rally-killing pickoff in the second that felt like it might have turned the momentum of the game.

•    Elias got a good jump and made a nice running catch in left-center.

•    Joey tossed off the mask and snagged a high popup at catcher in the fourth.

•    Asher caught a bullet of a line drive in self defense leading off the fifth.

•    JT straddled the bag at third base, fielded a grounder, and made a strong throw to a stretching Chace at first to retire the leadoff man in the sixth.

•    Asher ended it by springing off the mound and making a solid play on a jam shot down the third base line for the final out (yes, I just copied and pasted this from yesterday because I am lazy).

Monday's line score	1	2	3	4	5	6	R	H
North View	1	1	0	0	0	0	2	5
WR 9U Blue	2	0	0	3	6	0	11	6