By REID TUCKER
After the conclusion of the 2016 Walton County Baseball Tournament, one thing is clear: the players can add “marathoner” to their résumés, or at least they ought to.
Endurance was obviously the key in both games played on the night of Tuesday, April 12. South Walton nabbed first place over tournament host Walton, steadily piling on the runs down the stretch to best the Braves by a final score of 7-4. Paxton, on the other hand, played the baseball version of rope-a-dope, soaking up a drubbing from Freeport in the opening frames before tying the game at 7-all, then mounting a fifth-inning surge to win 13-8 over the beleaguered Bulldogs.
All four teams played hard just the day before, with Paxton even hitting the road later that same evening after losing its opener against Walton (though the Bobcats did win over the much-larger Niceville via a near-perfect no-hitter from Grant Stewart). Fatigue had well and truly set in by the second day of the tourney. No kidding – the championship game and the contest for third and fourth place took nigh unto three hours apiece to complete, and that made for one seriously long evening of baseball, what with ample warm ups and field prepping factored in.
That said, the action started out pretty furious in both cases. South Walton banged out three hits to start off its eventual win, adding two runs from Dillon Bates and Chases Miles in short order before the end of the top of the inning. Walton did its part too, tying the game at 2-all after Thomas Brack singled and Jace Hughes reached on a walk, with both men scoring via sacrifices from their teammates.
There wasn’t too much action until the top of the fourth, when Seahawk batters Austin Garofalo, Miles and Bates (the latter two went 2-for-3 on the night to boot) all reached on massive hits to add another three runs. The Braves pressed back in the bottom of the ensuing inning to make it a 5-3 ballgame after Kole Bengston singled, scoring Hunter Bedell, who got to first by way of one the game’s rarer features – a fielding error from the fairly squeaky-clean Seahawks. Walton paid the price for a few miscues of its own in the top of the sixth, when an error loaded the bases, enabling Adam Richards’ sac fly to score Miles from third, and a wild pitch from Bedell (Walton’s second pitcher of the night, who took over for Tucker Coffield in the fourth) brought Harris Barton home for a 7-3 Seahawks lead.
Walton had a flash in the pan of a final at-bat, as Hughes reached on an error then stole his way to third with two outs on the board, only to score after another error put Bengston on first base. Though Jace Fielder was walked and Noah Wright battled hard in his last appearance at the plate, it wasn’t enough for the Braves to mount a comeback when the latter went down looking.
Richards recorded the win with five hits and three walks but eight Ks, whereas Walton’s Coffield was retired for giving up seven hits in three and a half innings of work. Bedell, who filled in, gave up three hits and had three strikeouts to Coffield’s five.
Freeport and Paxton’s third place game was even more of a war of attrition, as Paxton had to battle back from a 6-0 deficit after just the first two innings. But even a start that rough couldn’t keep the ‘Cats down, as they pulled out four hits of their own to tie the score in the bottom of the second Not that it was a quick affair, as the first two frames lasted all of 80 minutes. Freeport got back out to a one-run lead by the top of the third inning, but Paxton again matched the Bulldogs’ figure, assisted by three walks from pitcher Bailey Miller, who would go on to accrue 13 of the Freeport’s eventual 16 total hits on the night.
Paxton bided its time, adding only one more run in the bottom of the fourth despite leaving a few runners on, but the Bobcats really sprung their trap in the fifth inning. A trio of hits from Connor Varnum (2-for-3 with a single and double), his big brother Zach, and Kaleb Newborn (also 2-for-3 with a single and a double) gave the Bobcats a 13-7 lead against which Freeport could not revenge itself. The ‘Dogs tried their level best anyway – even adding another run in the top of the sixth inning – though they did leave two men stranded in their last at-bat of the game to give Paxton the hard-fought win.