Great Lakes 2, Southeast 0

Pool Play Game 3

(8/22) Williamsport, PA – The Southeast champions suffered their first loss as a team thanks to dominant pitching from the Great Lakes champions from Illinois. Earlier in the day, the West team (2-1) defeated the Mid-Atlantic team (0-3) 4 to 1 to give this game meaning. With three teams in pool A finishing with 2 wins and 1 loss, the tie-breaking rules were needed to determine which two teams would advance. Great Lakes will advance as the pool champion because they gave up fewer runs (1) than Southeast. Southeast gave up the same number of runs during the tournament as the West team (5), but Southeast will advance because they defeated West in game 2. The first five Northern hitters were strikeout victims. Brady Hamilton broke the string by singling to center-field in the second inning. He would finish with the only Northern hit of the night. He would be the only baserunner until the sixth inning when, with two outs, Kyle Carter was hit by a pitch and Josh Lester walked. The game ended when the Great Lakes pitcher recorded his thirteenth strike out. Though taking the loss, Kyle Rovig pitched a good game himself. He finished with 6 strikeouts and only gave up two hits. After a three-up and three-down first inning and a leadoff strikeout to start the second, the next batter was hit by a pitch. The next batter walked. The next batter grounded out pitcher to first but an errant throw by Carter to second base allowed the first run to score. The next hitter singled to score the second run before Rovig followed up with a strikeout to end the inning. In the bottom of the third, the lead-off hitter singled but the sacrifice attempt that followed went back to Rovig on the mound and he was able to throw out the runner advancing to second. The next hitter hit a shot that was headed down the third base line toward left field but there was something in the way and that was Patrick Stallings at third base. He stabbed the line drive for the second out. The fourth batter struck out to end the inning. After a 1-2-3 fourth inning, shortstop J. T. Phillips started off the fifth inning by making a great play on a ball that took a funny bounce and throwing the runner out at first. The next two hitters walked but the next two struck out and grounded out to end the inning. The Southeast team advances to single-elimination play against the Pool B Champion New England team from Portsmouth, New Hampshire who also finished 2-1 in the tournament. The game will be played on Thursday night at 7:30 and will be televised by ESPN.

1 2 3 4 5 6   R H E Southeast 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 West 0 2 0 0 0 - 2 2 0 Pitching: Rovig 5IP, 21 batters, 6K, 2 runs (1 earned), 2 hits

Brady Hamilton got the only hit for Southeast, a two-out, second-inning single.