Bolivar Commercial/Donell Maxie
Spence Martin gets ready to fire a strike for the Cleveland 9-year-old All-Stars Sunday afternoon. Martin was one of the many players instrumental in Cleveland winning the Dixie Youth 9-year-old North Region Baseball Tournament.
The tournament was held over the weekend at Bear Pen Park in Cleveland, and the hometown team was perfect going 5-0 through the competition.
Head coach Bill Dodd said he was really proud of the team and that they won it because they played like a team.
“Our kids did a great job this weekend and pulled it through,” Dodd said. “Everybody gave all they had and played as hard as they could to win this tournament for us. On this team there are no superstars. We had a contribution from everyone out there.”
The Cleveland team kicked the tournament off with a 13-3 victory over Kosciusko Friday in four innings. The team jumped out on Kosciusko early and never looked back.
On Saturday, Cleveland got over a slow start against Washington County and won the game 9-1.
According to Dodd, the toughest game had to be the team’s second game on Saturday when they faced Washington County.
“They were a good team with a hard throwing right hander in a kid named Walter Warren,” Dodd said. “He shut us down for two innings, but the way Dixie Youth is if you pitch more than two innings you can’t pitch the next game so it causes us to have to swap pitchers. They put their second pitcher in and we started to get some runs in on him.”
In Saturday’s second game, Cleveland played Philadelphia in a game where the team did not hit the ball well. Despite their woes at the plate, the Cleveland All-Stars managed to win the game 6-3. The three runs was the most the team gave up all tournament.
On Sunday Cleveland faced Kosciusko again and blasted them 16-2 in four innings.
“When we faced Kosciusko the second time, they had pretty much exhausted their pitching and it turned into a run fest,” said Dodd.
In the final game, Cleveland had to face Washington County again and won the game 16-0.
“They had burned up their No. 1 pitcher (Warren), so we were able to jump on them real quick and score two runs in the first inning and 12 runs in the second and that pretty much sealed the deal for us,” said Dodd.
Throughout the tournament, Dodd and his coaches used a pitching format which included Spence Martin, Cross Crowe and Cedric Gardner.
“We would start with Spence pitching two innings, followed by Cross and Cedric each pitching two innings. In the final game, we decided to let Spence stay in because he hadn’t given up a run all tournament so we just went for broke and let him pitch the whole four innings to end it for us,” he added.
Following the win, Dodd said the team was very excited about winning the North Half.
“It had been a while since we played and through the tournament the team’s confidence really grew,” Dodd said. “We didn’t get to play district or sub-district so this was the first time we got to play together, and they did a great job.”
The team will be back in action in the Dixie Youth 9-Year Old State Baseball Tournament in Hattiesburg. Cleveland is scheduled to play at 8 p.m. Saturday.
Cleveland team members include Cross Crowe, Jacob Dodd, Cedric Gardner, Nolan Horton, Shane Huskey, Spence Martin, Ty Morgan, William “Paul” O’Neal, Riley Smith, Eli Stallings, Trey Williamson and Zach Willingham. The coaches include Dodd, Rodney Martin and Bobby Williamson.