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RED SPRINGS – Walker Ward’s 3-run first-inning homer started a 4-homer barrage that carried Elizabethtown to an 8-2 victory over West Robeson American Saturday that earned a berth in the Dixie Youth Baseball Majors State Tournament for the winners.
Garrison Tatum beat out an infield hit to start the game, moved up on a wild pitch and raced home when Evan Pait lined a single to rightfield. Ty Mathis forced Pait at second, and Elijah Bullard drew a walk before Ward walloped his 3-run shot over the right-centerfield fence for a 4-0 Elizabethtown lead.
An error, a walk and Jacoby Brayboy’s single produced an unearned West Robeson run in the second.
Mathis drew a 2-out walk in the third inning, and Bullard crushed a towering home run into the tops of the trees behind centerfield that padded the Elizabethtown lead to 6-1.
Jacoby Strickland doubled and scored in the West Robeson third inning. Elizabethtown threw out a runner at the plate on the back-end of a double-steal to end the West Robeson fourth inning.
Pait launched a home run over the left-centerfield fence to begin the fifth inning, and one out later Bullard blasted his second homer of the game over the leftfield fence.
Mathis started on the mound and pitched 4.1 innings to pick up the win before being stopped by the pitch-count limit. He struck out six, walked 2 and allowed 2 runs – one earned – on 5 hits.
Coleman Tatum relieved Mathis and retired all 5 batters that he faced – 2 by strike-out – to close out the victory.
Bullard batted 2-2 with 2 home runs and 3 runs batted in. Pait finished 2-3 at the plate with a home run and 2 rbi’s. Ward slugged the 3-run homer, and Garrison Tatum and Tyler Johnson added one hit each.
Elizabethtown finished second in the District 9 Tournament and advances to the State Tournament at Leland that begins onJuly 15.
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