By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
Jacksonville’s Gwatney Chevrolet senior American Legion team limped into the Zone 3 tournament that began last night at Dupree Park.
Not only does the squad enter the postseason with a loss, losing 10-8 to Benton Tuesday night, but it faces the prospect of barely having enough players to play. Rules require teams to have at least 12 players in the dugout. Jacksonville has exactly that many, but injuries have put keeping that many in danger.
Centerfielder Colt Harmon left a game early at Sylvan Hills on July 8, and hasn’t returned. Other players have played sparingly because of injuries and illnesses. Jacksonville will field a team for the tournament, as another rule allows teams to move a player up from the junior squads if needed, but it doesn’t seem to be at full strength.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do about it, if there’s anything we can do about it,” Jacksonville coach Bob Hickingbotham said. “It’s not just that we have players out, we haven’t been playing very well lately either.”
Jacksonville took a 5-0 lead in the first inning at Benton, but blew it with numerous walks, hit batters and errors.
Patrick Castleberry provided the highlight of the inning with a three-run home run with no outs in the first. Jacob Abrahamson singled and Kenny Cummings walked to set up the dinger for Castleberry, but Benton scored the next eight runs of the game to take command.
The McClendon Appliance squad chipped away at Jack-sonville’s lead at first, scoring one run in each of the first, second and third innings.With Jacksonville’s bats falling silent, Benton then put together a five-run fifth to take the lead.
The Red Devils mounted a comeback in the sixth when the eight and nine hitters got on base, and leadoff hitter Jacob Abrahamson driving them home with a two-run single.
Benton added two more runs in the bottom of the same frame to extend its lead back to three runs. Jacksonville tried to rally again in the seventh. Gwatney scored to make it 10-8 and had two runners in scoring position with one out, but Benton pitcher Corky Welch struck out the next two batters to end the rally.
“We just aren’t focused like we were earlier in the season and we’re not coming to the ball park to play ball,” Hickingbotham said. “I’ve got four or five who are really working at it, and four or five who aren’t. When we come to play, I really believe we have the best hitting lineup in the district. This is one of the most talented teams one through nine that I’ve ever had. But when we don’t come to play, we lay down.”
Jacksonville has lost only four of its 20 games this season, and has been run-ruled in two of the losses, once by Cabot and once by Russellville. Although not a run-rule loss, the loss to Benton was more similar to the bad losses than the 5-4 decision it dropped at North Little Rock in extra innings.
“That was just a tough, pretty well-played game by both teams, but our other three losses were games where we just didn’t show up.”
Jacksonville suffered bad luck in the draw for the zone tournament. With four teams tied for first place, teams drew for seedings with the teams that drew the top seeds getting the byes. The byes went to North Little Rock and Russellville, while Cabot and Jacksonville had to play last night.
Another strange detail to the tournament format was the four seed playing the six, while the three seed played the five.
Usually, the higher seeds play the lower seeds. As it is, Cabot played sixth seeded Sylvan Hills last night while Jacksonville and Conway followed.
The Cabot-Sylvan Hills winner plays North Little Rock today at 4 p.m., while the Jacksonivlle-Conway winner will face Russellville at 7 p.m.
