August 20, 2011
By Kevin Trudgeon
The Winchester Star
Winchester celebrates its 10-1 win over Mineral Area, Mo., Friday at Yost Field. It can become the first host team to win the Cal Ripken 10-Year-Old World Series with a victory in today's title game.
(Photo by Scott Mason/The Winchester Star)
Winchester's Andrew Brait pitches in the first inning Friday evening.
(Photo by Scott Mason/The Winchester Star)
Mineral Area player Cole Ziegler is thrown out at home in the 4th inning.
(Photo by Scott Mason/The Winchester Star)
WINCHESTER- Something about Andrew Brait just does not sit well with Mineral Area, Mo.
A week ago the hard-throwing Winchester pitcher shut out the Midwest Plains champs, holding the Bulldogs to one hit in a 1-0 victory to begin pool play for both teams.
On Friday night, he gave an encore performance.
Taking the mound for the host team in the semifinals of the Cal Ripken 10-Year-Old World Series, Brait showed the first outing was not a fluke.
He held Mineral Area to one unearned run and helped the Winchester all-stars to a 10-1 win in front of more than 1,500 rowdy fans at Jim Barnett Park's Yost Field.
With the victory, Winchester advances to take on Southeastern Lexington, Ky., - which beat Elk Grove, Calif., 6-2, in the other semifinal - in today's 1 p.m. championship game.
Playing under an ominous sky that seemed sure to erupt in showers at any moment, Brait and his teammates kept their dream run alive with their fifth straight victory in the tournament.
A sixth one will make them the first host team to win the event.
"I'm really excited to have the opportunity to play in the finals," Brait said. "I knew we were a good team and I thought we'd do good in pool play, but I didn't know we'd come this far. This is awesome."
Playing in front of by far the biggest crowd through the first seven days of the tournament, Winchester (5-0) showed why some people are believing it is a team of destiny.
After throwing a scoreless top half of the first inning, Brait got things started at the plate, lifting a fly ball to left that landed between two Bulldogs and allowed him to reach second.
A wild pitch moved him to third and third baseman Cameron Mintz's fly out to left brought him home. And that was just the beginning.
Another sacrifice fly in the second inning, this time off the bat of center fielder Aaron Banks, scored catcher Hunter Entsminger and Winchester pushed across two more in the third when Mintz scored on an error and Entsminger came up with a run-scoring single to make it 4-0.
"The last thing I say before I come out of the dugout every inning is that we need base runners," said Winchester manager Bob Brown, whose team totaled 12 hits on the night.
"If we get base runners, we have a chance to score. We were hitting the ball well tonight and we had a couple kids who really hustled and beat out some plays and that got us going."
While the bats were coming alive for the boys in maroon, Brait was making short work of Mineral Area (3-3).
The right-hander pounded the strike zone again and again, forcing the Bulldogs to put the ball in play or go down swinging. He finished with four strikeouts and no walks.
"You don't want to walk anyone," said Brait, who threw an astounding 51 strikes on 57 pitches in the game and never went to a three-ball count.
"You want to try and hit the outside corner and make them swing."
Mineral Area's only run came in the fourth inning off two singles and an error.
The Bulldogs had a chance to add to their score later in the inning, but Cole Ziegler was thrown out at home on a double steal and Brait induced two groundouts to strand a runner at third.
"[Brait] definitely kept us off balance," said Mineral Area manager John Simily, whose team was coming off a dramatic come-from-behind win over West Raleigh, N.C., in the quarterfinals the night before.
"He changed speeds really well, he hit his spots and he made it hard for us to score runs."
Up 4-1, Winchester put the game away in the bottom of the fourth with a four-run, five-hit outburst.
Second baseman Daniel Croyle led off with a single - Winchester had four of its five leadoff batters reach safely and score - and five of the next seven batters came up with hits, including a two-run single from first baseman Jalen Tyson.
Two Mineral Area errors allowed two more runs to score in the fifth and Brait capped his masterpiece with a 1-2-3 sixth, striking out two and bringing the home crowd to its feet with the final out.
Asked if he would have believed that his team would be playing for the championship before the tournament, Brown could only smile.
"I might have thought you were walking around with a screw loose," he said. "I thought we could play at this level, but I didn't know if we would have the consistency. But now we have a chance."
- Contact Kevin Trudgeon
at ktrudgeon@
winchesterstar.com