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Farmville, VA Results | |
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Farmville, VA Results | |
March 18-19, 2000
Golden Corral traveled to Farmville, VA and
captured another first place trophy on this cold, windy weekend.
In the first game Saturday morning, Golden
Corral met a team made up of half of the local Blitzkrieg team, plus a couple other top
notch players. They were no match for GC in this one, however. With the score
tied at 3 after the first inning, Golden Corral unloaded on their opponents. Kevin
Henderson, Eddie Poole, Kirk Barnes, John Hudson, Tuffy Eggleston, Tony Conner, and Rodney
Mosley mixed singles and doubles amongst big homeruns from JoJo Owens, Matt Hunt, Kevin
Neal, and Chris Cole to stretch the lead to 17-4 after three complete. This contest
only lasted one more inning, as GC continued the onslaught with 4 more in the top of the
fourth. The game was called, 21-4, when Blitz/pickup failed to score.
The next two games of the round robin portion
of the tournament were against Superfriends, who fell to GC, 11-2, and New Canton Aces,
who also didn't have the firepower to stay with Golden Corral and lost 24-7 in 5 innings.
Barnes (6 for 6), Cole (5 for 5), and Hunt (7 for 8, 3 HRs) led the way in these
two lopsided games.
Sunday morning's double elimination tournament
pitted Golden Corral against the hapless Superfriends, again, and it was lots more of the
same in this one. Hunt homered three times, Eggleston twice, Neal and Poole hit
safely four times each, with Hudson, Duffer, Mark Carter, Mosley, Hendo, and Barnes all
adding three each for the final of 32-2 after only four innings.
Next in line for Golden Corral was State Farm
from Chase City. State Farm has a strong team, and they jumped out to an early lead
in this contest. Trailing 2-7 entering the bottom of the third, GC managed 5 runs
with a few hits and a homerun from Owens. Then in the fourth, after State Farm had
taken a 14-7 lead, Golden Corral struck back hard with consecutive hits from Poole, Owens,
Hudson, Hunt, and clutch homeruns from Neal and Duffer to go ahead 16-14. State Farm
was not done themselves, as they battled back with 8 more runs to take a 22-16 lead.
GC had plenty of fight left, as well, and plated 6 of their own in the bottom of
the 6th, fueled by a Hunt missile that tied it with two outs. When State Farm
stranded base runners in the top of the seventh, all GC needed was 1 run to win it.
With Cole up first and being a homerun threat, he was walked. This brought up
Mosley, who chalked one up for the little guys, as he pulled the ball into the pine trees
for a 2-run homer to end the exciting game, 24-22, in favor of Golden Corral.
This sent Golden Corral into the undefeated
game versus Select Specialty. This was a back and forth game between two evenly
matched squads. Hunt's four HRs, Hudson's 5 for 5, and Cole's 4 hits weren't enough
as Select won this one, 27-25. GC then had to face State Farm again to get back to
the title game. GC started out slowly, but got hot and buried State Farm, this time
by the score of 24-13. Hunt homered three more times, as did Duffer, and Owens
stayed hot with a 5 for 5 effort to lead Golden Corral.
GC had a difficult task at hand now. They
had to beat the well-rested Select team twice to capture the title in this tournament.
With the temperature dropping into the low 30s and the wind blowing, it was not an
enviable task. GC appeared to be running on empty in the early going, scoring but 1
run in the first two innings, but Select failed to pull away. Trailing by 4 runs
entering the third inning, GC plated 7 runs behind hits from Owens, Neal, Duffer, Barnes,
and clutch homers from Eggleston and Mosley to tie the score. GC went ahead in the
fourth and never relinquished the lead, in route to an 18-12 victory.
This forced the final "if necessary"
game, and after a couple of slow innings, this one was all Golden Corral. A big
homer from Select put them ahead briefly, but GC took over in the third with a 15-hit,
14-run assault that whisked away any shot of victory from Select. Owens, Hudson,
Hunt, Neal, Duffer, and Mosley all had two hits each in the inning. GC poured in 5
more runs in the fourth on homers from Hunt and Neal to make it 22-5. When Select
could only score 2 in the bottom of the fourth, the slaughter-rule went into effect for a
22-7 victory that completed the double-dip a Golden Corral victory.
Team Leaders: Matt Hunt set a blistering
pace this weekend (.875, 18 HRs), Chris Cole was also on fire (.826, 5 HRs), and Kirk
Barnes (.714), Tuffy Eggleston (.677, 5 HRs), and JoJo Owens (.667, 6 HRs) hit well, too.