Frederick clinches NABF tourney title

The Frederick Hustlers continued slugging their way through the NABF Sophomore Division World Series and got an incredibly gutsy effort on the mound from Jordan Carr to earn an 8-2 victory over the Long Island Storm in the tournament’s championship game on Sunday at City Stadium.

The lefty-tossing Carr threw a complete game and held the Storm to just two runs, eights hits, a walk and struck out seven. But, most impressively, he worked the last four innings with a giant bandage on his face after being struck squarely on the chin with a sizzling liner off the bat of Pat Bryant.

Carr tried falling backwards to avoid the missile and threw up his glove to try to protect himself, but to no avail. He bounced up immediately and searched for the ball, but it had ricocheted back toward home plate and into foul territory.

Seeing he had no play on the ball Carr calmly stood on the moundand checked his chin for blood with his hand as coaches from both teams rushed towards him. After talking with the coaches for a few minutes he went over to the dugout where his chin was bandaged.

“All I saw was the ball,” Carr said. “I was going to stay in no matter what. My jaw is a little sore and I may need some stitches.”

Then he went back out to the mound, picked off Bryant and proceeded to scatter two hits and a walk over the next 3 2/3 innings to earn the win.

“I was just thinking lets do it,” Carr said. “I had a lot of fun and it was really exciting.”

The two runs Carr gave up in the first inning shouldn’t have scored though were earned runs. With two out in the inning Brian Kavanagh hit a routine ground ball to second baseman Maciah Thomas, but some miscommunication between Thomas and first baseman Chandler Redmond led to Thomas’ throw to first being late.

Two singles and a wild pitch later and Long Island had a 2-0 lead.

“Jordan pitched a phenomenal game,” Frederick coach Jack Redmond said. “He’s a gamer. He didn’t want to come out of the game. He’s a better kid than he pitched today and he pitched so good today you just can’t help, but wonder a good a kid he is.”

The Hustlers quickly gained a reputation as a team that could swing the bats when they outscored their first day’s opponents 41-7 and continued to hit throughout the tournament.

“I think we scored some where in the realm of 90 runs (in seven games),” Redmond said. “The kids just play hard. (Bryant) was throwing 87 miles per hour at the beginning of the game and it just took us a little while to get our bearings. I’mjust so proud of these kids.”

Frederick took the lead with three runs in the third and never looked back. Ben Warren got things started with a one-out double. Matt Kraeger followed by drawing a walk and Josh McClain singled to load the bases and set up an RBI-single byThomas that scoredWarren.

Kraeger scored and McClain went third and Thomas to second on the play when the throw from centerfield went all the way to the backstop. The third run came when Mc-Clain stole home.

Thomas went 2-for-4 with two runs, two RBIs and stole three bases. Kraeger had a triple, drew a walk and scored twice. Justin Keller went 1-for-2 with a sacrifice fly and had two RBIs and Redmond was 2-for-4 with two RBIs and won the MVP award.

Bryant went 2-for-2 with a walk and won tournament’s batting title for Long Island. Andruw Gazzola and Matt Stepnoski both had two hits for the Storm.

“The Lynchburg area, Mary (Love) and her staff, Bill (Booker) and his staff and everyone that did all the field work just did a great job,” Redmond said. “They made it so good for so many kids. Not just for the Hustlers and the Storm, but for all 16 teams in the whole tournament. We just want to congratulate everybody that participated.”