FORT MYERS, Fla. – The havoc that the wild weather Southwest Florida presents in the summertime has left many in the 2017 16u BCS National Championship scrambling to get games completed.
OK Sandlot Ritter 16u has had it as hard as any team the past three days, but the club based from the Tulsa, Okla., area took two out of three games to win their pool and advance into the playoff pools.
“On day one, we got six total innings in during the course of 14 hours, and Tuesday we got in 10 innings in 14 hours,” Sandlot head coach Jason Ritter said. “At one point, having all three games in our pool delayed in the third inning is something I haven’t witnessed maybe ever since I’ve been involved in the game. It’s been a rough stretch.”
The program which has produced Michael Fulmer, Dylan Bundy and Archie Bradley, among many other professional players, has had to get through pool play with two key pitchers unavailable under two different circumstances.
Jake Bennett (2019, Tulsa, Okla.), the No. 8 player in Oklahoma for the class of 2019 is a Sooner commit, but the lefthanded pitcher is at a family gathering. Ritter’s son, Trenton (also an Oklahoma commit), is nursing elbow tendinitis and hasn’t thrown much the entire summer.
“We came here down a bit short-handed, but the kids have really battled through things and did what they needed to do to give us a chance heading to the next round,” Ritter said. “Getting the first two victories locked us into the next round and we’ll have some arms available that will give us an opportunity to take on anybody that we do face.”
On Tuesday, Sandlot leadoff man Connor Beichler (2019, Owasso, Okla.) had a standout day with three doubles in his first three plate appearances, and drove in two runs to lead his team past Florida Burn 2019 North, 6-1.
Steven Bighorse (2019, Bixby, Okla.) (four innings pitched with three strikeouts) and Braeden Grayson (2019, Broken Arrow, Okla.) (three innings, three strikeouts) combined to shut down the Burn offense to get OK Sandlot Ritter off to a 1-0 start.
After the completion of their first full game, right after that game ended, Sandlot picked up their suspended contest with Gators Baseball 16u, with a 4-0 lead in the third inning. That lead went by the boards quickly as the Gators put up a four-spot to tie the game up. However, OK Sandlot Ritter responded with a three-run fourth inning, with Beichler driving in a run on a sacrifice fly and Matthew Kaiser (2019, Broken Arrow, Okla.) driving in two runs with a single to left field.
Darkness forced the game to be moved from the JetBlue Park facilities to the stadium at City of Palms Park under the lights. Payton Miller (2019, Yukon, Okla.) was excellent in relief to close out the game for Sandlot firing 2 2/3 scoreless innings while striking out four to wrap up a 7-4 victory.
OK Sandlot Ritter had a great opportunity to go 3-0 in Pool V play, but a 6-4 lead in the sixth inning vanished with Coastal Prospects 16u scoring three runs in the bottom of the sixth and they held on to win 7-6 on Wednesday.
Beichler is 4-for-9 with five RBI in the three games, and Kaiser is 3-for-8 and has driven in three runs to lead the way offensively for OK Sandlot Ritter.
With the pools to be reset with the top two teams in every pool advancing onto to playoff pools, OK Sandlot Ritter will likely rely on lefthander Jaden Bray (2019, Tulsa, Okla.), who fired two strong innings on Wednesday, Miller and Wyatt Sellers (2018, Sapulpa, Okla.) to try and get them off to a good start in the playoffs beginning Thursday.