By Staff
BUCHANAN – The 14U Buchanan Boys Travel Baseball Team secured their spot in the upcoming BPA World Series by winning the Clio Mustang Stampede tournament this past weekend.
Buchanan faced the Cadillac Slam in game one on Saturday afternoon.
Both teams battled defensively until Buchanan was able to execute a squeeze bunt by Nathan Henckel in the fifth inning advance Jonathan Shembarger and put a run on the board.
That single run lead would be the final score and the Bucks would advance to round 2 with a 1-0 win over Cadillac.
Bryan Kuntz was on the hill for the Bucks and went the distance for the entire seven innings.
"Great pitching and outstanding defense was the key to this game," coach Eric Henckel said. "Playing on the 60-90 fields makes getting a base hit much more difficult so you need to capitalize when you have runners on. We had good base running and executed our plays when we needed too and that helped us win the game."
The Bucks then squared off with the Clio Mustangs for round two of the tournament that same afternoon.
The Mustangs jumped out front with an early two-run lead. The Bucks rallied back but the Mustangs were hitting and managed to get one more run in the second to make the score 3-2 going into the third inning.
The Buck's offense stepped up and got the bats going to put seven more runs on the board. The defense also managed to hold the Mustangs scoreless for the remainder of the game to make the final score 9-3.
Jonathan Shembarger and Jake Wahlstrom handled the pitching duties for game two.
The win advanced the Bucks into Sunday's finals.
The championship game would once again pair the Buchanan Bucks with the Clio Mustangs.
The Bucks were rested and ready to play and jumped out to a two-run lead in the first inning.
The Buck defense was equally impressive, holding the Mustangs to one run.
The Bucks turned up the heat and ended the game in three innings with a score of 13-1 (12-run rule).
Garrett Shembarger took care of the pitching duties for the Bucks in game three.
Winning this tournament secured Buchanan a spot in the upcoming BPA World Series which will be held in Muncie, Ind. July 25-29.
The Bucks next tournament will be July 20-22 in Galesburg.
The Bucks would like to thank Delta Machining and Dowagiac Commercial Press for their generous sponsorship dollars in making this season possible.
The Bucks would also like to thank many of our townspeople who supported their recent car wash on June 16. Look for future car washes coming up in July.