Winter World Series Semifinals: Big Blue 22, Southern Pitt 5

Sometimes you overhear things at the baseball field. Like the two Southern Pitt coaches who were having this conversation near the batting cage on Sunday morning:

Southern Pitt coach 1: "I think we've got a good chance against them. They're going to play good defense, we know that, but they've never seen a team that hits it like we do."

Southern Pitt coach 2: "As long as we don't tell our boys that these same guys are the West Raleigh team from this summer, we should be OK."

That strategy didn't work, and neither did the inventive scorekeeping strategy of trying to persuade the umpires that ground balls should count as outs, as Big Blue moved into the championship game of the Winter World Series with a 22-5 victory over Southern Pitt. It was once again a complete offensive effort, as every player had at least one hit, 11 different players scored at least one run, nine different players had at least two hits, and Big Blue pounded out six extra-base hits.

The game was never any doubt, as Blue plated three quick runs in the first on the way to building an eventual 19-0 lead before Southern Pitt got a runner to third base.

Game 3 Big Blue scoring plays
First inning
JT reached on a liner to right-center. With one out, Gavin singled. With two on and two out, Jake got a huge clutch double to drive in the first runs of the game. Mason's single drove in Jake.
Score after one-half inning: Big Blue 3, Southern Pitt 0

Second inning
Timmy led off with a single and hustled to second when the ball wasn't handled cleanly. Elias followed by smoking an RBI double. Asher singled back through the middle to drive in Elias. With one out and Trey on first, Bryce singled the other way. After a fielder's choice, Gavin doubled deep to right-center to score Bryce. Chace invoked the five-run rule with a two-run single to left.
Score after one and a half inning: Big Blue 8, Southern Pitt 0

Third inning
Jake led off with a single to right, and eventually came around to score on Timmy's two-out RBI single.
Score after two and a half innings: Big Blue 9, Southern Pitt 0

Fourth inning
Asher and Trey led off with back-to-back singles, and then Bryce drove in Asher with a single back through the middle. JT crushed a double that scored two. Gavin's hard hit to shortstop turned into a defensive adventure, with JT coming all the way around and Gavin motoring into third. Jake's double scored Chace and invoked the five-run rule yet again.
Score after three and a half innings: Big Blue 14, Southern Pitt 0

Fifth inning
Mason and Joey led off with back-to-back singles. Ben picked up an RBI single with a line drive to left. Timmy smacked an RBI single, and Elias earned an RBI on a grounder to the left side. Timmy came home on Asher's grounder to first. With only one out, Bryce ended the inning due to the five-run rule with an RBI single.
Score after four and a half innings: Big Blue 19, Southern Pitt 0

Sixth inning
JT led off with a single. Gavin hit a rocket to center that turned into an RBI triple. With one out, Jake had an RBI single. After Mason's double, Joey cracked an RBI single to right-center.
Score after five and a half innings: Big Blue 22, Southern Pitt 5

Game 3 Web Gems

• Leading off the second, Chace knocked down a short-hop throw at first base. The overeager hitter was used to a normal eight year-old first baseman, and just assumed the ball would go to the fence, so he made a turn towards second. Bad move. Chace picked up the ball that he had knocked down and made the tag for the first out of the inning.
• With two outs in the second, the Southern Pitt hitter ripped a shot up the middle that looked like a sure single. But Mason never even blinked behind his Terminator sunglasses and speared the ball in the air to end the inning.
• With Big Blue starting to shuffle the defense in the fourth, Chace made a good play to knock down a hard-hit ball in the fourth, then flipped it to Mason covering second to end the inning.
• Trey snuffed a potential huge Southern Pitt inning in the fifth, fielding a tough chance at pitcher and throwing to JT at third to record the force.
• Did you wonder what all those Big Blue coaches were doing wandering around in the infield before the game started? Mostly, they were just trying to look useful, since everyone knows Big Blue players are so good they don't really need coaching. But while trying to look useful, they also found just a few rocks:

And that's just one handful! Of course, Big Blue defense is not subject to rocks, snow, heat, astroturf or hail.  

Game 3 line score	1	2	3	4	5	6	R	H
Big Blue	3	5	1	5	5	3	22	28
Southern Pitt	0	0	0	0	5	0	5	7