By Kyle Dean/Sports Editor
June 23, 2009 10:12 pm
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TIFTON — The 11-12 year old Tift County all-stars split a pair of games Tuesday and will have to win four games over the next five days to reach the state tournament.
Playing in the Red bracket of the GRPA Class B District tournament, Tift defeated the Sumter Raiders by a 9-1 score in five innings.
Tift was then defeated in the winners’ bracket semifinals by Crisp County by a 15-3 score in four innings as Tift could only manage one hit in the game.
In the win over Sumter, Tift got great pitching from Korey Greer, Mitchell Layfield and Jacob Pritchett.
Greer started the game for Tift and worked through some early trouble in the first inning.
After a walk to the leadoff batter, Greer got the next Sumter batter out on a fielder’s choice, allowing the runner to third.
The next batter sent a sharp grounder to third, but Jordan Walker fired home to Morgan Williams, who tagged out Brian Miller at the plate.
Sumter eventually struck for a single run in the first, as Bo Moore delivered an RBI single up the middle to score the Raider runner from third.
The lead would not last long, however.
Tyler Goforth and Williams greeted the Raider pitcher with back-to-back singles, and an error allowed the duo to advance to second and third.
Goforth then scored on a wild pitch.
Walker grounded out to second on Tift’s next swing, scoring Williams from third to give Tift a 2-1 lead.
Greer struck out two batters in a 1-2-3 second inning and Layfield relieved him in the third inning.
Tift came back with three more runs in the third inning, as Bo Hicks led off with a single. Goforth’s fielder’s choice wiped out Hicks at second and Williams was hit by a pitch to set up Walker.
Walker delivered an RBI groundout to give Tift a 3-1 lead and a wild pitch put Tift up by three runs in the bottom of the third inning.
Pritchett then hit a single and advanced to second on an error in the field, and he scored when Jacori McCoy hit a solid single up the middle to give Tift a 5-1 lead.
McCoy was thrown out trying to advance to third for the final out.
Layfield and Pritchett did not allow a Sumter runner to advance to third for the remainder of the ball game, allowing only one hit in three innings of work.
Tift then used two walks, and two base hits to end the game via the mercy rule in the fifth inning, with Aiden Vickers providing the game-clinching RBI single.
Greer earned the win for Tift.
Tift will play Moultrie today at 5:30 p.m. at the Magnolia Sports Complex in Moultrie with the winner advancing to play Crisp in the Red bracket championship game at 7 p.m.
The winner of the Red bracket will face the winner of the Blue bracket in a three-game series on Friday.
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