EMERSON, Ga. – Coach Brian Lamp had strong words for his team as the Indian Springs Stingers defeated Mission Team Baseball 9-5 and captured the 17u PG Super25 Georgia Regional championship. The Stingers overcame six defensive errors to fight back and score nine runs in the victory.
“Digging deep, just digging deep.”
Logan Whittlesey started on the mound for the Stingers and he was effective for a majority of the game. He provided six strong innings and only allowed four earned runs, three of those came in a bad third inning for Whittlesey. Overall, he got the victory for his team over six innings and added four strikeouts and sat in the upper-70s to low-80s with his fastball.
Spence Johns, the No. 13 third baseman in the state of Georgia for the class of 2017, opposed Whittlesey on the mound for Mission Team Baseball. Johns sat in the same velocity range – upper-70s to low-80s – but was hurt by some bad defense. After a pickoff error in the second inning, three unearned runs came in to score. In the fourth inning after a throwing error from the third baseman, two more unearned runs came in to score. Johns’ final line on the day was seven runs, only one earned, over four innings and worked around eleven hits.
There was plenty of offense to go around for the Stingers but the main contributors were Reid Hogue and Cole Steadman. Hogue had two hits on the day including a two-run double in the fourth inning; Steadman collected two doubles and drove in four runs.
Trent Tolbert came into the game and shut the door on Mission Team Baseball. In his single shutout inning Tolbert struck out two and only walked one batter to clinch the championship for the Stingers. Lamp was proud of his team’s ability to battle the elements, including the hot June sun. By focusing on their mission they were able to box out the distractions and focus on bringing home the championship.
“It’s a grind, you have to think of the goal,” said Lamp. “You stay with trying to win, you’re not going to win the tournament on the first day and you just have to stay on the grind.”
The Stingers were able to battle adversity all tournament, including some poor defense in the championship game. Lamp was disappointed as the defense is normally the Stingers’ biggest strength, but the hitting kept them afloat all tournament as they scored 7.6 runs per game.
“We wanted pitchers to throw strikes and get ahead of batters,” said Lamp. “We were trying to play better defense than what we did, defense is normally our strength, but this weekend our hitting was our strength.”
Cole Steadman thinks this is an opportunity to create momentum for the team. They will take this tournament victory in stride and use it going forward in future tournaments.
“It’s great, this is our first win of the summer,” said Steadman. “It makes us feel good and we have Fort Myers (at the BCS Finals) in a couple of weeks to roll into.”
With the Super25 National Championship and other tournaments coming up, the Stingers are looking to have their best baseball ahead of them.
“Hopefully we can build on this,” said Lamp. “We go to Fort Myers in two weeks and we’re going to try to win it. We want to go in with the attitude that we can win.”
Mission Team Baseball advanced to the championship game after defeating the Game On Braves 4-2. They rode their starting pitcher – and tournament MV-Pitcher – Michael Cherwenka, to victory as he dominated on the mound. Cherwenka tossed a complete game while only allowing two runs and two hits while striking out eight batters.
The Stingers defeated the East Cobb Patriots 1-0 in an extra-inning thriller to advance to the championship game. The Stingers got strong efforts from both of their pitchers, Kenly Hager and Casey Gilliliand. Hager allowed only three hits and no runs to score in his five innings and Gilliliand tossed three hitless innings and secured the win. The Stingers loaded the bases in the eighth inning and scored the game-winning run on an unsuccessful double play.
The MVP of the tournament was Cole Steadman of the Stingers. He finished by going 6-for-14 (.429) with six RBI, including the four in the championship game.
2016 PG Super25 17u Georgia Regional runner-up: Mission Team Baseball
2016 PG Super25 17u Georgia Regional MVP: Cole Steadman
2016 PG Super25 17u Georgia Regional MV-Pitcher: Michael Cherwenka
