CUMMING,
Ga. – In a battle of unbeatens,
Team Tennessee Baseball (5-1) came up short on Tuesday afternoon,
losing 6-2 to the East Cobb Tigers (6-0) in a Pool F matchup of the
2012 15u WWBA National Championship.
Team
Tennessee had won its first fives games of the tournament by a
combined 38-12 margin, including two shutout victories. Leading up to
Tuesday’s game, the team played lights out offensively.
“Gosh,
we’ve hit the ball incredibly this tournament,” said Tennessee
Baseball head coach Brad Fullington. “We’ve just been taking
incredible hacks, squaring the ball up, hitting the ball all over the
yard and running the bases like crazy.”
Then
the team lost its groove against the Tigers.
“For
some reason, our approach at the plate left us today,” Fullington
said. “Our leadoff guy got on base and gets picked off. It was the
first time he’s gotten picked off all year. It kind of set the
tempo.
“I
thought we hit the other guy’s pitch a lot as opposed to hitting
our pitch, and we hadn’t done that the whole tournament.”
Fullington,
who also serves as an associate scout for the New York Mets, said he
founded the organization in Nov. 2011 as a 501(c)3 non-profit.
“We
were the 14u Knoxville Stars last year,” Fullington said. “I’ve
been with some of these players since they were eight years old.”
The
shift in direction came about in part because of the need to attract
players from outside of the Volunteer State, Fullington said.
“It
started because we were the Knoxville Stars, and we just couldn’t
draw players from all over the country by having such a local name,”
Fullington said. “We expanded to make it Team Tennessee. Now I’m
working with the Tennessee Baseball Coaches Association, and they
feed me kids from across the state of Tennessee. And then I work with
Mets scouts, who feed me kids from around the country, to help grow
the organization down the road.”
The
team, which played in the 2012 16u Perfect Game-East Cobb
Invitational a few weeks back, looks to be in good shape in spite of
the loss to the Tigers.
“Up
and down our lineup, we’ve got maybe one guy who’s struggling
right now, but I honestly think the guys are going to get a hit every
time,” Fullington said. “I think our strengths are really just
fundamentals. We play good defense and hit the ball well.”
Team
Tennessee will conclude its pool play schedule on Wednesday against
the Dallas Patriots 15u FTW-Ramirez at South Cobb High School in
Marietta, Ga.