By CHAD MATCHETT
Special to The Leader
The Centennial Bank American Legion AA squad picked up a win over the Sylvan Hills Bruins on Thursday night while playing at home, sort of.
Cabot hosted Sylvan Hills at the smaller Babe Ruth field at the City Park and took advantage of the smaller dimensions with a pair of homers in a 6-1 win over the Bruins.
The “other” park has been good to the AA team. It was the in-betweeners second win this week, both at the city park, and fifth of the season after getting off to a slow start and rarely playing any home games.
Sylvan Hills used their AAA squad, but were still held in check as Cabot’s Ryan Logan went the distance on the mound.
“Ryan didn’t miss many of his spots tonight,” said Cabot coach Chris Gross. “He kept the ball low all night, changed speeds and hit the corners. You do all those things and you’ve got a good chance to win.”
Cabot jumped ahead in the bottom of the first inning, scoring all they would need with one swing. Tyler Wilkie walked, Coleman McAtee singled and Kason Kimbrell launched a three-run homer to give Centennial a 3-0 lead right out of the gate.
Sylvan Hills starter Dalton Freeling ran into some bad luck in the fifth inning after shutting down Cabot the previous two innings. Connor Vocque walked for Cabot to leadoff the inning, then scored one batter later when Wilkie hit a home run to right field, just clearing the 275 foot fence. The Bruins lost a chance to score in the sixth inning thanks to the short porch in right, when a blooper that probably would have fell between second and right on a regular field, was caught by the right fielder playing up.
“The field hurt us a couple times, but we were both playing on the same field,” said Sylvan Hills coach Jim Fink. “We didn’t make plays and they did. Their pitcher did a great job keeping the ball down. He had great command of his pitches tonight. We’ve got to score more than one run. You knew going in that wouldn’t be enough.”
The Bruins did push across a run in the top of the seventh when Logan was finally wearing down. A walk on four pitches to led off the inning. Korey Arnold doubled, leaving runners on second and third. Logan struck out the next batter, but a grounder to second brought in the first run for the Bruins.
Logan finished off the game with a strikeout on his 126th pitch of the night for the complete game win.
Cabot’s AA squad moved to 4-9 on the season with the somewhat surprising win over the older Sylvan Hills bunch.
“We’re still trying to get everyone on the same page,” said Fink, who was missing several players to work and church camps. “It can be kind of hard when you’re not sure who’s going to be at the game. I haven’t made out the same lineup twice yet this year.”
