By GRAHAM POWELL
Leader sportswriter
The Cabot Centennial Bank junior American Legion team earned a pair of victories over two different Little Rock teams Monday night at Brian Wade Conrade Memorial Field.
In game one of the doubleheader, Cabot beat the Little Rock D-Backs 11-5 in five innings, and in the nightcap, Cabot beat the LR Eagles 7-3 in six innings.
It took the hosts a couple of innings to get things going in game one against the D-Backs, but in the third inning, Cabot (22-4) reeled off five runs and never looked back.
Centennial Bank trailed 3-1 going into the third inning. The D-Backs were held scoreless in the top half of the inning, and Cabot got to work in the bottom half. Centennial Bank shortstop Blake McCutchen got the inning started with a single to center field, and he scored the next at-bat on a double to right by Brett Brockinton.
McCutchen scored on an errant throw to the infield as Brockinton trotted to second base, and the bad throw allowed Brockinton to advance to third. Bobby Joe Duncan walked two batters later, and he and Brockinton later scored on a bad pickoff attempt at third base.
Brian Tillery and Dylan Billingsley scored the final two runs of the inning to give Cabot a 6-3 lead. Centennial Bank scored five more runs in the bottom of the fourth to put the game away.
Brockinton led off the bottom half of the inning with a double to left center. He went to third base on a passed ball shortly after, and Will Jerry drove him in with a groundout to first base. That gave Cabot a 7-3 lead.
Duncan was next up, and he hit a stand-up double to right center before scoring on a Nicholas Belden single to straightaway center field. Tillery was hit by a pitch the next at-bat and Billingsley walked to load the bases.
Belden then scored on a balk by D-Back pitcher Teddy Bryant, and Tillery and Billingsley scored on a two-RBI single by Brenden Sheldon, which made it an 11-3 game.
The D-Backs scored their final two runs in the top of the fifth, and once the top half of the inning was over, the game was called because the two-hour time limit expired.
In game two against the Eagles, the first two innings were scoreless, but like the first game, Cabot reeled off five runs in the bottom of the third to take a 5-0 lead.
Three-straight singles by Sheldon, McCutchen and Brockinton started Cabot’s third-inning rally. Brockinton’s hit drove in both baserunners to make it a 2-0 game. The next hit was a stand-up double by cleanup hitter Dillon Thomas, which drove in Brockinton for a 3-0 Centennial Bank lead.
Thomas scored the next at-bat on a single by Easton Seidl. A sacrifice groundout by Michael Crumbly advanced Seidl to second base, and Seidl went to third shortly after on a passed ball. He scored on a double down the right-field line by Duncan, which capped the scoring for the inning.
Cabot scored an unearned run in the fourth inning to lead 6-0. The Eagles scored their first run in the top of the fifth before Cabot scored its final run of the night in the bottom half of the inning.
Ty Cyr got things going in the bottom of the fifth with a two-out double to the fence in left center, and he scored the next at-bat on a line-drive single to left by Belden.
The Eagles scored two more runs in the top of the sixth to set the final score, and once the top of the sixth was over, the game was called because the time limit expired.
Brockinton earned the win on the mound in game two. He threw four innings of no-hit baseball before being relieved by Cyr in the fifth. Brockinton recorded five strikeouts and gave up just one walk.
In game one, Tillery earned the win. He took to the mound in the top of the third with Cabot trailing 3-1, and pitched the rest of the game. He gave up just one hit and one earned run in his three innings of work, striking out one batter while walking four.
Cabot outhit the D-Backs 11-3, and outhit the Eagles 12-2. In game one, Brockinton led all batters, going 3 for 3 with an RBI and two runs scored. Duncan and Skylar Weidman also had multiple hits in game one with two apiece.
In game two, McCutchen and Seidl were the only players for either team with multiple hits, as each went 2 for 2.
