By CHAD MATCHETT
Special to The Leader
Jacksonville’s 14-year-olds came up short against Pine Bluff North on Friday morning in the opening game of the Babe Ruth state tournament in Benton.
Jacksonville lost 6-2 thanks to the bats falling silent for much of the game.
Both teams had base runners in the opening inning, but neither scored as Jacksonville left Ryan Mallison stranded on third, while Pine Bluff also left a runner 90 feet away from home.
The second inning started off strong with Justice Austin walking and stealing second to lead off the inning. A hard grounder to second moved him to third, but a strikeout and grounder ended the inning.
After Pine Bluff scored in the bottom of the inning, Jacksonville played small ball to tie the game 1-1. Courtland McDonald reached second on an error then moved to third on a one-out sacrifice bunt by Mallison, putting the wild pitch or passed ball into play.
Instead, Justin Abbot camethrough with a single to right for Jacksonville’s first run.
Pine Bluff took advantage of its speed and patient hitting to manufacture a pair of runs in the third and fourth innings and take a 5-1 lead.
Keilen Richardson walked for Jacksonville in the fifth inning and scored on a wild pitch as Jacksonville’s batter kept going after first pitch strikes on the outside corner and hitting grounders to second base.
“We have to hit the ball better and that starts with our approach,” said Jacksonville coach Jason Carpenter. “We have to be smarter than that.”
Jacksonville had two first-pitch groundouts to start off the sixth inning before Austin singled to left. A flyout ended the sixth, then the side was retired in order in the seventh to end the game and put Jacksonville into the losers bracket with a game time of at 5:30 today.
“We’ve got the talent here to make some noise,” Carpenter said. “We got good pitching today, the hitting just wasn’t there. We’ll get back out tomorrow and see what happens.”
Donte Harris started on the mound and scattered five hits and five walks over five innings. Harris pitched out of more than one jam in the game, stranding runners in scoring position in three of his five innings. Austin Huhn came in to pitch the sixth inning and stranded two more in scoring position.
