The Pirates from Crane were able to beat the Pirates from Norwood for the second time this season on Saturday. Crane won 8-7 in the Hartville Tournament Championship game to improve their season record to 5-6.
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Crane led Norwood 8-2 heading into the bottom of the seventh inning when Norwood began a vigorous rally. Sophomore pitcher Brent Williams was asked close out the game he started on the mound, but Norwood had other plans. Norwood began their half of the final inning with a single and a walk, followed by an error on a ball hit to the second baseman to score a run. The next batter was hit by a pitch to load the bases, setting up a two-RBI double by Matt Davis in the next at-bat. That made the score 8-5 with runners on second and third and no outs.
Coach Bryan Harmon then decided to take Williams out and bring in Colby Smith to close the deal. The next two batters recorded sacrifice RBI groundouts, bringing the score to within one run.
Finally with two outs and the game on the line, Norwood hit a pop up on the infield and forced Williams – now playing short stop – to make an awkward diving catch and secure the game 8-7.
“That kind of scared me for a second,” said Smith. “Usually, my mindset is just put the ball in play and let my defense play behind me because that usually works out.”
“I saw a gutsy effort on the mound from Brent Williams,” said Coach Harmon. “That’s two great starts in a row for him. He’s done a great job. I think he kind of ran out of gas. I got greedy and maybe left him in a couple batters too long. His pitch count wasn’t extremely elevated, but he gutted it out so hard I wanted him to finish it. But we had a bullet in Colby Smith to come in and close it and he did.”
Saturday’s game was a sloppy one, as just three of the game’s 15 total runs were earned.
Crane beat Norwood 4-3 on March 24 and was able to pull off the one-run victory again on Saturday. After winning all three games in this weekend’s tournament, Crane has raised their record to 5-6 after starting out 1-5.
“We talk in the beginning of the season about getting better every day,” said Harmon. “We got off to a 1-5 start and at that point, we still know the record, but we threw the record out the window and we said, ‘The record doesn’t matter, it’s [about] getting better every day.’ Well, this weekend the record mattered; 3-0. It was an impressive weekend.”
The host Hartville beat Gainesville in the third-place game 10-0. Willow Springs beat Laquey 10-7 in the fifth-place game.
Norwood, a Final Four team in Class 2 a year ago, now sits at 7-4 on the season after the second-place finish. They’ll square off against Morrisville on Tuesday, April 12. Crane will look to continue their winning streak on Thursday when they take on Forsyth.
