By Lonnie Turner
When it was all said and done, the Dillon Kiwanis Major League All Stars that went to Lexington as South Carolina’s representative to the Dixie Youth World Series made history for the City of Dillon.
On two previous occasions All Stars participated in the post season gala affair, the first taking place in Lexington back in 1995 and the second at Freedom Florence in 2003, but this 2014 team is the only one that brought home some hardware.
With 11 states vying for the title of Dixie Youth World Series Champions, plus the South Carolina host team from Gilbert, our Dillon group consisting of five 11-year-old and seven 12-year-old players won three games, making it to the final four before being eliminated by the eventual Champions from Mississippi. Our South Carolina team eliminated Louisiana, beating them twice, and sent Alabama home in the other win.
Tied for third place overall in the series with Florida, the Dillon team brought home a beautiful third place trophy, which will be displayed in the trophy case at the City of Dillon Wellness Center.
In a situation a lot like the biblical story of David and Goliath, the little scrappy South Carolina team needed to beat Mississippi to get to the championship game and even though they didn’t win the game last Thursday evening, they definitely won the hearts of the people at the Lexington Sports Complex as they took on the highly favored team from Mississippi.
After Mississippi scored seven times in the first and five more in the second to take a 12-0 advantage, people just figured the Dillon boys would fold up and take it on the chin for another lopsided score from the Champions from the gulf state. By the way, Mississippi had wins of 12-1 over Alabama, 10-0 over Virginia, 18-7 over Florida, and 14-3 over the champions from Pembroke, NC. Dillon earned its way to a chance to play the “Giants” by defeating Louisiana, 3-2, and after falling to Florida, 16-0, on Sunday, bounced back to send Louisiana home with a 12-7 whipping on Monday to advance to the final four.
Trailing 12-0 going into the bottom of the second, starting pitcher Landon Sanders issued back to back walks to Cooper Lane and Nick Evans and Collin Hamilton followed with his first of three hits on the night to send Lane scampering across the plate with SC‘s first run. Mississippi used the long ball in the top of the third and fourth innings to go up even higher to take a 16-1 lead.
Mississippi tied a World Series record with 21 home runs and they hit four in the first four innings, including a three-run and two-run shot by Devin Daniels; a two-run blast by the pitcher, Sanders; and finally another two-run round-tripper by Tate Duncan.
Dixie Youth Baseball officials, knowing that the game would be over in just three more outs as Dillon went to bat in the fourth, had all the trophies and other awards piled out behind the Mississippi dugout in preparation for the post game presentations. Just to show that ex-New York Yankee catcher Yogi Berra knew what he was talking about when he said, “It ain’t over ‘til its over,” the South Carolina players put on a show and a new meaning to the phrase “Don’t ever give up!”
BoBo McKinnon hit the first pitch off relief pitcher Jacob Moses to right field and Tristian Brigman followed with another single. Jared Ivey bounced to the second baseman to get a force out of Brigman for the first out, but the throw to first for a potential double play was not in time to double up the fleet Ivey. John Rourke hit a two-strike pitch up the middle for a single and Cooper Lane drove a ball deep to center that scored McKinnon to make the score 16-2.
Dixie Youth rules state that a team with a 15-run lead after three innings will be awarded the game on a mercy ruling. With McKinnon’s run, the game now had to go at least four innings for the 10-run lead rule to be in effect, but it didn’t stop there. With the Dillon crowd going wild with the flurry of hits and runs being scored, North Carolina and even some of the Mississippi fans were pulling for Dillon. Nick Evans, Hamilton, and Barnes Causey had successive singles and Noah Carter was issued a free pass.
With the bases loaded, McKinnon, who led off the inning with a single, hit a 3-2 pitch to right field for a double to score two more runs. Brigman chased Moses from the mound with a sharp single to right and Jared Ivey was safe at first on an error by the Mississippi shortstop with McKinnon scoring to make it a 16-9 game. John Rourke’s third home run of the series sent three more runs across the plate and South Carolina trailed 16-12. What a comeback and what a mark of a champion.
Being the potent team that they were, Mississippi came back with two runs in the top of the fifth on back to back doubles by Riles Stuart and Javen Moses and an error to go up 18-12. South Carolina scored in the bottom of the sixth on singles by Jared Ivey and Nick Evans, but fell short by an 18-13 decision. Thirteen runs were the most runs given up by Mississippi in the tournament.
South Carolina’s 11 runs in the fourth inning were more than Mississippi had allowed in the entire tournament and somewhere in the record book must be the record for biggest comeback in World Series history.
The leading hitters for South Carolina were Collin Hamilton, 3-for-4, one RBI, one run; John Rourke, 2-for-4, HR, three RBI, two runs; Tristian Brigman, 2-for-4, one run; and BoBo McKinnon, 2-for-4, double, two RBI, two runs. Jared Darmon and Ahmari Huggins-Bruce had one hit each in the 14-hit assault.
Mississippi went on to beat Pembroke, North Carolina, 11-6 for the 2014 Dixie Youth Majors Championship.
Coaches Brad Sawyer, John-John Brigman, and Jamie Hamilton did an outstanding job and won the trust and respect of not only the twelve players on the team, but the parents, Dillon fans, and all the folks at Lexington that saw this team in action. They were in the running for the coveted Sportsmanship Award, but were nosed out by the young men from Virginia.
