In a game dominated by pitching Saturday afternoon, Murphey-Candler National’s Connor Brown delivered the decisive blow with his bat.
With runners on first and second and one out in the top of the eighth inning of a scoreless contest, Brown took a Teddy Rovolis offering and drilled it over the center-field fence to propel his team to a 3-0 win over Coastal Little League of Richmond Hill on the opening day of the Georgia Little League Baseball 12-and-under state tournament at the South Bryan Recreation Department.
It was a critical win for Murphey-Candler and an even more devastating loss for its Pool B counterparts, Coastal.
“It’s tough. We had a lot of opportunities, but you’ve gotta score to win,” Coastal coach Scott Karnibad said. “Our pitching is great, but we’ve got to hit the ball, and our bats were just off today. But give credit to their pitchers. They had us off stride, and their defense made some huge plays.”
The host Wildcats missed their biggest chance in the bottom of the seventh.
Brandon Schwier and Jared McKinney notched consecutive singles to open the frame, before Murphey-Candler hurler Elijah Dwoskin set down the next two hitters. Rovolis then laced a sharp single to center, but Schwier was caught in no-man’s land between third and home and was thrown out trying to get back to third, ending the threat.
“I thought initially he could get down the line, but when the pitcher cuts that ball off, we would have been out by a good 50 steps, We tried to get back in safely but couldn’t. The credit goes to them on a great play.”
Coastal turned in a few defensive gems of its own. The biggest one came in the top of the sixth when Karnibad’s son, center fielder Jarrett Karnibad laid out to snag a line drive to lead off the inning that took away extra bases.
“We played great defensively and pitched great; they just had one more big hit than we did,” the elder Karnibad said.
In fact, Coastal pitchers Luke Whetstone and Rovolis limited Murphey-Candler to a lone basehit until the eighth, when Nathan Ford led off with a single and later advanced to second on an Alex Gavlak safety that set up Brown’s blast.
Prior to Saturday’s action, an opening ceremony was held, where all the players were introduced, and University of Georgia head baseball coach Scott Stricklin threw out the first pitch. The tournament is the second consecutive statewide one hosted by Richmond Hill, which also entertained the 10- and 11-year-old event in 2012. The 10-team competition is split into two five-team pools, where each team plays four games apiece in a round robin format. The top two teams from each pool will play Thursday in the semifinals, with those winners squaring off for the championship on Friday morning.
The Wildcats now must win their next game on Monday at 8:30 p.m. against perennial powerhouse Warner Robins American to avoid backing themselves further into the corner.
“We’re in a huge hole right now,” Karnibad said. “If we don’t beat Warner Robins, we’re going to need Cartersville to upset Murphey-Candler. The good news is we only gave up three runs, and we forced Murphey-Candler to burn a couple pitchers while being able to save ours for the most part. We’re going to have to depend on some other people, but obviously if we can beat Warner Robins, we’re right back in the driver’s seat.”