By DEVIN HASSON

The D.Q. Busters had their goal within reach on Saturday. All they had to do was take down an old familiar friend in longtime rival the Fort Smith Outlaws.

The Busters, who had scored 14 runs in each of their previous three games, looked well on their way to another offensive outburst when they raced to a 5-0 lead after two innings.

The run production would slow down, but the results would be the same, as tournament MVP Harrison Pew allowed just two runs in six innings as the Busters, an honorable mention selection in travelballselect.com’s top 25 poll, picked up a 5-2 victory over the No. 18 Outlaws to win the championship at the 11U Super Series Central Championships at The Ballfields at Craig Ranch in McKinney.

“We set out goals every year--to have fun, improve, win state and win a World Series and with this, we accomplished our goals,” D.Q. Busters head coach Scott Stroth said. “It’s huge, we set our goals in January each year on the World Series and we build everything we do around that and the kids worked tremendously hard to do this.”

The Busters, based in Conway, Ark., actually got off to a rough start, dropping their pool play opener last Sunday to the Texas Sliders, 5-3. They would rebound with wins over the Dallas Tigers and McKinney Marshals to claim the fourth seed in bracket play.

It was then they turned up their game. After squeaking by the Southlake Green Dragons, 3-2, in the opening round, the bats got hot, as they knocked off the Corpus Christi All-Americans (14-2), the top-seeded Omaha Pacesetters (14-9) and the Fort Smith Outlaws (14-5) to advance to Saturday’s final.

“This week, they were so respective of our wishes to eat right, get in bed at 8:30, we stayed in a good routine,” Stroth said. “This is a vacation for a lot of people, but we didn’t come to play, we came to play baseball and the kids respected that. That isn’t always the case, we’ve just got a real good group of kids.”

The Busters were looking to improve to 6-0 in Super Series games against Fort Smith and wasted little time getting started. Leadoff hitter Britt Stroth walked and Toney Hawkins, Kyle Ferguson and Jacob Adams added base hits to stake them to an early 3-0 lead.

In the second, the Busters went back to work, as Hawkins added a home run to push the advantage to 5-0.

The Busters were in control, but they knew the Outlaws would make a run. Tanner Wiley came on in relief and held the Busters without a run through the remainder of the game. Fort Smith pushed across a run in the fourth when Wiley and Mark Clark singled and Ty Storey followed with a bloop base hit to drive in a run.

In the fifth, Tyler Gray walked, moved to second on a wild pitch and scored when a throw got away at third base to make it 5-2.

That would be all Pew would allow, as he went the distance in a complete-game effort, getting a diving grab by second baseman Jacob Adams to end the game.

“You just go out there and do the best you can. You know they are a good team and they can come back at any point,” Stroth said. “They are very well-coached with a ton of talent they’ve beaten us plenty of times in the past so you hope for a little luck and you hope the kids play well and hope you come out on top.”

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