Local 14-and-under team starts slow, finishes strong to win World Series
By Robert Morgan | Published Sunday, August 9, 2009
It appeared as if the pressure and the heat at the Super Series World Series Tournament in Waco would bring an early end to the Wise County Wolverines' 14-and-under baseball team. The talented bunch lost two of its three games in pool play and were seeded low going into bracket play.
However, the Wise boys were just warming up as the they dominated the rest of the week. In fact, the team won seven out of its eight games in the championship play to win the World Series the last week of July.
After hitting just .207 as a team and averaging more than two errors a game in pool play, the Wolverines responded like champs when it got down to crunch time. They averaged .350 at the plate in bracket play and scored 53 runs in eight games to prove to the rest of the field that they were all business down the stretch.
The Wolverines faced the Tyler Mustangs in the World Series title game. It was a rematch that was five days in the making and more than two months overdue for the Mustangs as they lost to the Wise standouts 2-1 in the championship game of the McKinney tournament earlier in the summer.
Since the event was a double elimination and the Wolverines lost once in bracket play, they had to find a way to beat the Mustangs twice in order to take home the big prize. Tyler was the No. 2 seed in the tournament and was undefeated in World Series play. That did not faze the ninth-seeded Wolverines as they played flawless defense and stunned the Mustangs 3-1.
The victory put the Wolverines one win away from the title, but it was also their third game of the day and 11th of the tournament. The group never ran out of gas as they rallied from a 1-0 deficit to score in three straight innings and eventually win the game and the World Series with a 10-7 victory.
Being a low seed forced the Wolverines to play through the toughest side of the bracket. That challenge was a success as they started their drive to the final game with a 12-0 win over the Dallas Patriots.
Next up for the Wise stars was the Ennis Outlaws, the top-seeded team in the tournament that defeated the locals in pool play. Both teams took the lead at different points, but the Wolverines had the only one that mattered as they rallied to shock the tournament favorites, 7-6.
The win came at a cost as the team could not regroup later in the day, and it dropped a 5-0 decision to the Panthers. The group was one loss away from going home.
That never happened to the Wolverines as they won three straight games to get to the big show.
When the dust had settled, the Wolverines used 10 pitchers in the tournament, five of which threw in three games each, and the team's ERA in bracket play was a spectacular 1.78.
Six members of the team received all-tournament honors, including Omar Martinez who was selected as offensive Most Valuable Player. Alex Samples, Dylan Waldrep, Branon Huff, Jordan Mitchell and Damian Delgado were named all-tournament.
