For a double-elimination tournament, perhaps the best thing a baseball team can have is plenty of pitching.
Neither Hot Springs Village-Graves Sports nor Lakeside went into last week's American Legion Class AA zone tournament with deep staffs, but both -- especially the north Garland County representative -- can feel more well-armed entering the state tournament.
The eight-team event opens with two 5 p.m. games at Harrison's First National Bank Sports Complex, Lakeside playing Zone 3 champion Clarksville/River Valley Tropics and Zone 4 winner Sheridan facing Gravette (adjacent fields will be used). HSV-Graves, the zone runner-up, plays Maumelle and Harrison meets Jonesboro at 7:30 p.m.
Losers and winners of the first two games play at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Saturday, as do the teams in the second set of games. After two elimination games at 4 p.m., winners meet at 7 p.m.
Two games, including the losers'-bracket final, are at noon Sunday, with the first championship game at 3 p.m. A second title matchup, if needed, will be played Monday.
Strong efforts by top hurlers Mark Rucker and Tyler Robertson helped HSV (10-11) reach state. Less expected, regular shortstop Chase Anderson threw a complete game in Monday's 3-2 semifinal win over Lakeside. Anderson, who strictly played shortstop as an Arkansas Baptist College freshman this spring, also pitched two scoreless innings in relief of Rucker to close a 5-0 win over Bryant.
Despite a 10-6 loss to Sheridan in the final, HSV got an effective relief outing from regular third baseman Kyle Jessie, giving coach Mark Robertson another option for state.
Rucker threw 11 innings in the zone, allowing two runs and nine hits. Robertson pitched eight innings in a 5-4 win over Malvern National Bank, rebounding after Malvern's three-run seventh.
HSV likely will face one of the top pitchers in the tournament in Maumelle's Tanner Kirby, an Arkansas State signee.
Anderson and Jessie key HSV at the plate. Anderson went 7 for 17 in the zone, including a two-run double high off the left-field fence against Bryant, and Jessie 6 for 15 with four doubles. Jessie drove in the winning run against Lakeside with a sixth-inning two-base hit.
Lakeside (8-12), which clinched a trip to state with a 2-0 zone win over HSV on Johnathon Barmore's five-hitter (Rucker allowed four hits in six innings), went into the postseason without top pitcher Bo Ritter (illness), and learned at the start of the season pitcher Garrett Garner would be ineligible under a new rule requiring AA players to have been on the previous season's roster. After playing for the Rams' legion and high-school squads, Garner played in West Memphis last summer at the request of his LaBette Community College (Parsons, Kan.) coach.
Besides Barmore's performance, the Rams received encouraging outings from Andrew Spakes and Kyle Lightsey, the latter moving up after spending the regular season with Lakeside's Junior squad. Spakes threw 3 1-3 scoreless innings in relief of Tanner Rice in a 7-3 loss to Sheridan, and Lightsey held HSV scoreless on two hits until allowing two fourth-inning runs.
Lightsey, outdueled by Anderson (no earned runs, four hits), struck out seven and walked two in 4 2-3 innings.
The Rams will be without designated hitter Brandon Hall, who is visiting his seriously ill grandfather in California. Hall had five zone RBI.
Lakeside has won three AA state championships, including back-to-back titles in 2007-08, and reached the final in 2010 and 2011. HSV's best showing was in 2011, losing 12 innings to Lakeside in the semifinal.
Sports on 07/25/2014