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Wood Bat Invitational: Chaffee rocks Cape Jr. Legion
CHARLESTON -- It looked as though the Chaffee Senior Babe Ruth Baseball team was used to swinging the lumber.
They piled on 10 hits and scored 14 runs to open the first round of the Charleston Squirrels' Wood Bat Invitational Tournament Friday afternoon beating Cape's Junior Legion, 14-0.
"We kind of got used to swinging the wood earlier this week," Horrell said. "Maybe the experience helped us because we hit the ball pretty well today."
Chaffee, who played Saturday against Kennett who defeated Park Hills 9-8 in comeback fashion for a first round victory, had a strong showing from future Chaffee junior Cody Payne who allowed just five hits and stranded five base runners in five innings of work.
"He's a junk ball pitcher," said Horrell about Payne. "He threw his pitches for strikes today -- all three of them."
Payne, along with relievers Christian Cavaness and Dylan Koehler, was backed by a superb defensive effort from Chaffee as well.
Twice the pitching and defense of Chaffee left the bases loaded thwarting any chances for Cape to put runs on the board.
Christian Cavaness and Dylan Koehler split the last two innings both giving up just one hit apiece.
"Those guys came in and threw well too," Horrell said, referring to Cavaness and Koehler. "They saved us a few arms for the weekend and for a big game against the Squirrels coming up Monday."
Payne gave up just one walk and struck out five. Cavaness struck out two with one walk and Koehler had one of each.
"People aren't going to crush the ball. If you play good defense it's going to take three singles to score a run," Horrell said about the strategies of using wooden bats. "It's all about defense and pitching. Walks and errors are going to kill you in baseball and we did a good job of avoiding those."
Chaffee wasted little time going ahead.
They scored two runs in the top of the first inning after an RBI single by Neil Johnson and a fielder's choice play that brought in Koehler.
Chaffee added three runs in the fourth, three more in the fifth and ended it on the mercy rule in the sixth by putting up six in the sixth.
"We put the pressure on (their defense) and that's what you have to do in a wood bat tournament," Horrell said.
Cavaness led Chaffee with three hits including two triples and four RBIs. Payne added two hits while Nathan Holland contributed an RBI triple in the fifth.
Charleston 8, Jackson 0
In the final game on Friday, the host-team, Charleston Fighting Squirrels, defeated the Jackson's junior legion 8-0.
Further information about the game was unavailable at press time.
After the semifinals and seventh place game was played on Saturday, the championship game is scheduled for today at 3 p.m.