Tigers extend season in extras

“He threw strikes. He made them put the ball in play. Chandler has thrown pens all year. He has done all our pitching drills all year. He threw a pen last week. We just hadn’t had the opportunity to get him in. It just worked out in the biggest two innings of the year that he came in,” Demopolis coach James Moody said of the work from the Tigers’ fifth pitcher of the afternoon. “I had (the pitching order) written out and logged out through (Andrew) Fuqua. Then I figured my next one would be Chandler. I hoped we didn’t have to get to that point, but the coaches went in last night and we set it all up. We managed to make it work.”

Barton retired the only four batters he faced to notch the win in the rubber game of the Class 5A first round playoff series. The Tigers won it when three straight walks in the bottom of the seventh loaded the bases with only one out before Charles Casper hit a chopper to third that allowed Hunter Colyar to slide in for the game-winning run.

The sequence became a possibility in the bottom of the seventh when Demopolis overcame their 15-13 deficit on a two-run single by Hunter Thrash that plated Hudson Holley and Jonathon Lewis to tie the game.

“We were down three and came back and tied it. We were down three again and I think we scored seven, which shows a lot of character about our kids. Then, obviously, the big hit by Hunter Thrash in the seventh to tie the game up: a 10th grader there making a big play for us, a big impact for us,” Moody said.

Demopolis previously watched Brewbaker Tech score three in the top of the seventh to take a 15-13 lead before turning to Barton.

Demopolis overcame an early 3-0 hold in the bottom of the first when Colyar doubled home Barton to cut it to, Lewis tripled in Henry Overmyer and Charles Casper singled in Lewis to tie the game.

Tech scored three more in the top of the third before the Tigers sent 12 to the plate to score seven runs and take a 10-6 lead. Thrash drew a bases-loaded walk to plate Overmyer. Tyler Jones doubled home Casper and Morrison to tie the game. Thrash scored on a Barton walk, Jones scored on a Colyar walk, DeDe Davis scored on a walk by R.J. Cox and Barton scored on a Lewis walk to make it 10-6. The inning ended on a runner’s interference call that resulted in an automatic double play and took two runs off the board. The Tigers would see double plays end the third, fifth, and sixth innings to keep the game close.

After Jayden Sloan hit a solo homer in the fourth to cut it to 10-7, the Tigers rallied again in the fifth. Davis scored on a Cox walk. Barton scored on Lewis’s RBI grounder and Colyar came in on Casper’s single to move the advantage to 13-7. A fly ball to right with one away allowed Demopolis to score again but the run was negated when the runner on first failed to get back in time, resulting in an inning-ending double play. Brewbaker then turned two walks, two hit-by-pitches and two errors into six runs in the top of the sixth to narrow the gap to 13-12 and put itself in striking distance for the win.

“I don’t remember the last time we blew a lead that big. The tough thing about it for our pitchers was that most of it was because we didn’t catch the baseball. We did that to ourselves,” Moody said. “It just all collapsed right there in like the fifth and sixth. Maybe playing a game like this will help us next week. That has been our motto all year. It’s on the back of our shirts: focus to finish. You don’t know which pitch, which at-bat, which groundball is going to be the one that wins the game. That certainly proved true today with 31 runs scored. That’s ugly baseball.”

Fifteen different Demopolis players entered the game, including two in Fuqua and Thrash who were junior varsity players just two weeks ago.

“I think, as much as anything, it makes them all accountable. It makes them understand that, ‘Okay, when I’m at practice I’m not just here to keep a book or keep a chart or chase foul balls. I might have to throw or I might to go in and hit. I think it makes them accountable, but I also think it just brings the group together closer,” Moody said. “I tell people all the time the first two things I try to do every year with a team, regardless of who it is, is for them to trust me and them to build chemistry amongst the team. If those two things happen, we’ll be as good as we can be. I think that builds into that chemistry with those younger guys.”

Demopolis (18-6) is set to travel to Beauregard Friday for a second round series.