Toppers pound Paragould for title

Toppers pound Paragould for title

Marion moves to 6- 0 against rivals

Sports Editor PARAGOULD — Aphilosophical change on the fly may have helped Junior Weaver and his Marion Toppers claim a title last night.

With his team deadlocked in a scoreless war with Paragould GMC American Legion last night at Francis Bland Park in the final of the Glen Sain GMC Paragould Invitational, the coach made a conscious effort to try and manufacture a run of any kind.

His team broke through in the top of the sixth when first baseman Blake Daniels drove in designated hitter Matt Fraser with a single to left field and they picked up a key insurance run in the seventh inning when Nolan Smith singled and pinch-runner Preston Nichols scored on a Trent Johns single.

Marion (21-4-1 overall) was able to win with two runs thanks to its stellar pitching staff. Right-hander Larkey Dotson started and tossed five innings of twohit ball before handing off to closer Kollin Stone for a six-out save, his sixth of the season.

“Really well-pitched ballgame. Defensively we were good, I think we made one error,” Weaver explained. “You know, that’s a really tough infield, it’s not one of the nicer infields that we play on, the lights are bad and for a 7 o’ clock game, it can be tough. Dotson was really good, Kollin comes in throwing 87 or 88 miles per hour. Defense and timely hitting is how you win championships and we won a championship today.”

For most of the night in Paragould, it appeared as though the first run may take that title as Dotson and Grant Pritchard swapped zeroes.

Paragould missed a second- inning opportunity to break through when they left two runners on base, and they actually left at least one runner on in every inning, for a total of nine in all.

While Paragould squandered its chances, Marion rarely came up with any. A Nolan Smith single was the Toppers’ first hit of the night in the top of the second inning, but that was the only one for the team until that fateful sixth-inning rally as Pritchard retired 11 consecutive Toppers from the second inning until the sixth.

However, Dotson was nearly as effective after extricating himself from that second-inning jam. The Bolton native allowed single hits in the third-andfourth innings, but left them stranded, to set the stage for the eventual winning runs. In the top of the sixth, the left-handed-hitting Fraser ripped a ball down the leftfield line for just his team’s second hit of the night. Fraser looked like he would be able to leg out a double, but missed first base and had to go back and touch the initial bag.

Fraser ended up there anyway on a wild pitch and advanced to third when Paragould tried to backpick him as he led away from second base.

With Fraser on third, and two outs on the board, Cam Smith was intentionally walked to pitch to Daniels, who finished 7 for 10 during the tournament with one home run, five RBI and two runs scored.

Daniels delivered a scoring single to left field and the Toppers had broken through.

“I gotta tell you, I’m scratching my head on that one,” Weaver said of Paragould’s decision to walk Smith to face Daniels with the game on the line. “I’m wondering why you walk the two-hole hitter to pitch to a hot three-hole hitter who hit one about 400 feet yesterday? You don’t have a matchup, it’s righty versus lefty either way. So that was very curious. I’m not sure what the thinking was on that, but I’m glad he did it.”

After Dotson allowed a lead-off single in the bottom of the sixth, he departed, giving way to Stone, who retired the first three batters that he faced to get to the seventh inning.

In the top of the final inning, Nolan Smith came up with his second hit of the night and was removed from the game by pinchrunner Preston Nichols.

A Kollin Stone sac fly moved Nichols to second and Johns chased him in with a hit to center field.

Stone walked the Paragould lead-off man in the bottom of the seventh, but got the following two hitters ahead of a wellstruck groundball to third baseman Nick Alsbrook, who mishandled the shot, which allowed the tying run to reach base.

Things got even hairier when Stone ran the count full on Paragould’s thirdplace hitter, Lane Ditto, with runners on secondand- third.

However, Stone punched Ditto out to end the game and hand the Toppers their sixth win against Paragould this summer against no losses.

Marion is back in action on Tuesday when they host Memphis Homeschool Association at John Robbins Field for a doubleheader that will begin at 5:30 p.m. It will be a seveninning and a five-inning affair.

By Chuck Livingston