Tigers topple rival Marshals to claim national championship

By Devin Hasson

McKinney, Texas. The Dallas Tigers have not had an easy time with area rival Marshals this season. But when it mattered most, the Tigers rose to the occasion. For the second consecutive day, the Carrollton-based methodically took control and pulled away from the Plano-based team, claiming a 7-2 victory on Friday to win the 10U championship at the Super Series Super 16 World Series at The Ballfields at Craig Ranch in McKinney.

“They’ve had our number this year, this is the first two times we’ve beaten them this season,” Tigers head coach Kyle Woods said. “They were tougher than us in the first half of the year but we’ve come a long way.” The Tigers, an honorable mention selection in the latest travelballselect.com 10U national poll, excelled in all facets of the game with the title on the line. The offense staked the team to a 5-1 lead after just two innings of play. Starter Jake Whitbeck kept the Marshals, ranked 14th in the TBC national pool, bats quiet, allowing just a run on five hits in five innings of work, while the defense provided several gems behind him. “We hit the ball real well and we hadn’t pitched this well all year long, but we had a lot of different guys step up, and our defense played better than it has all year long,” Woods said. “One thing we did that we haven’t done consistently is make big plays when we needed to and this week, we were able to execute when we needed to most.”

The championship game was indicative of how the entire tournament went. Dallas completed the tournament by winning all six of its games by a combined score of 47-8 and it did not allow more than two runs in any contest. That trend picked up right away on Friday, just one day after the Tigers handed the Marshals a 9-1 loss. Syler Shepherd led off the game with a single and then stole second. With two outs, Jerad Martin was hit by a pitch, Hayden Houser singled home a run and Ty Manning doubled off the fence in left-center field to plate another to make it 2-0.

The Marshals answered in the bottom of the first, as Jonathan Hobart doubled to right field and scored on a single by Andrew Keefer. They were on the verge of a huge inning after two walks loaded the bases with one out, but Tigers shortstop Brandon Earnest fielded a ground ball, stepped on second and threw to first for a double play to get Dallas out of the inning and provide the first in a series of nice defensive plays.

The Tigers opened up some breathing room in the top of the second. Lance Russell led off the inning with a single and moved to second on a ground out. Dallas then got consecutive RBI base hits from Austin Upshaw, Shepherd and Will Adair to push the advantage to 5-1. The Tigers tacked on a run in the third when Manning singled, stole both second and third and scored on a ground out by Whitbeck. The lead swelled to 7-1 in the fifth when Adair singled and came around to score on a sacrifice fly by Martin. The inning could have been bigger for Dallas if not for McKinney center fielder Kameron Fields, who made a nice running catch for one out and then threw another runner out at the plate to get out of the inning.

The Marshals, meanwhile, were having a hard time scoring against Whitbeck, who was the beneficiary of several more good defensive plays, including a diving catch of a pop-up by Adair in the third. The Marshals has six base runners on from the second through fifth innings but was unable to cross the plate.

In the bottom of the sixth, the Marshals took advantage of some control issues from Tigers pitching to make one final push. Zach Deloach, Cooper Chandler and Fields patiently worked free passes and Chandler Grigsby then walked in a run to close to within 7-2.
But Earnest came on in relief and got the final two outs that Dallas would need to seal its national championship. “This is huge, this is the second tournament we’ve won this year, but this is a big one,” Woods said. “All these kids showed that they have a lot of heart.”

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