By ANN THARP
Special to The Leader
The Cabot Centennial Bank senior American Legion team fell 3-0 to the Little Rock Vipers Tuesday night at Gary Hogan Field in Little Rock. It was a pitchers dual at the home of the LR Trojans with no runs crossing the plate until the sixth inning.
Caleb Wilson pitched all of the outs but the final one for Centennial Bank and only allowed three hits through five innings. However, three hits and a base on balls resulted in three runs in the bottom of the sixth and Dylan Billingsley entered to record the last out. The loss evened Cabot’s record at 3-3.
The Viper pitchers, of which there were three, recorded ten strike outs while allowing no runs. Starting pitcher, Shelby Quiggins, pitched the first three innings and had five of the strike outs.
“We were playing great defense,” Centennial Bank coach Casey Vaughan said. “Wilson was throwing it up for us. He was getting the outs that we needed. They threw some really good arms. They went three innings at a time, threw three different guys. It was tough to get them, because we couldn’t get them tired. They had somebody in coming fresh that pumped in strikes. Disappointed in our offense tonight. I felt like we could have scored some runs, we had opportunities to, but also hats off to them, and our guy obviously did a great job, too.”
Cabot only had three base runners in the first four innings, two on walks, Brian Tillery in the first, and Caleb Harpole in the third, and Blake McCutchen on a fielders choice. McCutchen did steal second to reach scoring position in the first frame. Ty Cyr reached on an infield hit in the fifth. Tillery and Logan Edmondson reached on walks in the sixth and seventh, but the Viper infield turned inning ending, and in the seventh, game ending double plays in each.
Little Rock had its lead off batter on in the first, only to be put out in a run down. Runners reached on an error and an infield hit in the third, but ground outs to third base and shortstop ended the threat. A one out double by Lance Hartville-Thomas put a runner in scoring position in the fourth inning, but a ground out to short and a sliding catch in right field again kept the game scoreless. However, in the bottom of the sixth, back to back one out hits put runners on board, and a triple to left center by Grayson Troutman scored them both. He then scored on a single by Camron Johnson. That was when Billingsley took the mound and got the final out on a pick-off of Johnson at first for the third out.
Cabot came to bat in the seventh needing at least three runs, but a strike out and a double play ended the contest.