Pulaski All-Stars advance; Burnside Stars fall

By STEVE CORNELIUS, CJ Sports Editor
Commonwealth Journal

Somerset July 02, 2008 09:05 pm

— On Tuesday at the Science Hill Park, one local Little League All-Star team advanced to the finals, while another local all-star team fell in defeat.
The Pulaski County All-Stars had no problem downing McCreary County in a 16-3 four-inning win.
After scoring two runs in the opening inning, the Pulaski All-Stars put the game away with a huge nine-run inning in the second en route to their lopsided win.
Pulaski started off with two runs in the top of the first when Blake Burton scored on a McCreary wild pitch and then Kyle Payton stole home on a sacrifice decoy second base steal by teammate Alex Walters.
But it was the second inning that actually proved Pulaski to be the superior team as the local all-stars plated nine runs off five hits.
Justin Smith scored the first run of the inning after Cody Johnson reached first on a McCreary error. Burton singled to right field to score Johnson and Jake Hudson. Payton doubled through the infield to bring home Burton. Eric Jones hit a two-run homer to centerfield to score Payton. Johnson hit stinger down the right field line to advance all the way to third base to score Justin Smith and Christian Coots. Johnson scored after Hudson reached first base off a McCreary error.
Pulaski tacked on four more runs in the third inning. Jones hit an infield single to score Burton. Walters hit an RBI ground out to plate Payton. Jones stole home, and Coots stole home on a Justin Smith sacrifice second base steal attempt.
In the top of the fourth, Payton doubled to left field to score Burton.
McCreary scored three meaningless runs in their last at-bats, as Pulaski moves on to the Area 1 Finals to play Wayne County.
Pulaski pitchers Burton and Walters each pitched one frame apiece, striking out two batters apiece and allowing no hits. Grant Gover pitched one inning, giving up no runs and striking out two batters.
Pulaski was led in hitting by Burton, who went 3-for-3, drove in 2 runs and scored 4 runs. Payton went 3-for-3, hit 3 doubles, drove in a run and scored 3 runs. Jones went 2-for-4, drove in 3 runs and scored two runs.

PC 2 9 4 1 x x — 16 12 0
MC 0 0 0 3 x x — 3 1 6
2B — Payton 3. 3B — Johnson. HR — Jones. RBI — Burton 2, Payton 2, Johnson 2, Jones 3, Walters. WP — Burton.

The Burnside All-Stars were right in the game trailing 2-0 with the heavily-favored Wayne County All-Stars through five innings, however the wheels fell off in the sixth inning as Wayne exploded for 11 runs to cap off a 12-0 win.
Burnside ace pitcher Brenton Clemons kept his team in the game through five innings with an arsenal of tempting high pitches which kept the Wayne batters off-balanced. After giving up a homer in the opening frame, Clemons shut the Wayne offense down in the next three innings.
Also, Clemons was the only Burnside All-Star to get a base hit in the game as Wayne pitcher Tyler Guffey threw a one-hit shutout and struck out 14 Burnside batters.

WC 1 0 0 0 1 11 — 12 14 0
Burn. 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0 1 5

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