By: Will Jacobs
Last Tuesday, the Fyffe Red Devils faced off against the Geraldine Bulldogs in the 2018 DeKalb County Baseball Tournament. Both teams were looking to claim the first-place trophy for their program, but Fyffe would prove just how bad they wanted it.
Geraldine was the visiting team in the match-up and had a chance to take an early lead. Peyton Mooney hit a two-out single to right field, and Jessie Cofield was rounding third base and was headed for the plate. Ike Rowell would make the throw home and the tag was placed in time for the final out of the first inning.
Fyffe would get a couple of base hits from Rowell and Parker Godwin, but Caleb McSpadden would force a ground ball that led to a double-play. McSpadden would then force another ground ball to end the inning with the game still tied 0-0.
Jackson Bearden led off in the top of the second inning for Geraldine when he hit a single to right field. Brodie Stone would try to bunt Bearden over to second, but the bunt was popped up to Seth Benefield on the mound who caught in, and quickly turned and gunned down Bearden at first for the double-play. Fyffe would get out of the inning but would fail to score leaving the game still tied 0-0.
The third inning is where Fyffe really got things going. After not giving up any runs in the top half of the inning, the Red Devils would send eleven guys up to the plate. A flyout from Chase Adams led to eight consecutive people getting on base with four singles, two walks, one squeeze bunt and a triple. After a base-clearing single to center field from Cole Lyles and squeeze bunt from Adams, Fyffe led 8-0.
Benefield would then make quick work of the Bulldogs in the top of the fourth inning by retiring them with only eight pitches. On offense, Benefield drove in Brant Rowell with an RBI single and Brody Dalton brought home Benefield on a squeeze bunt to extend their already big lead to double digits. Justin Stiefel then scored on a balk by the Bulldogs just before Lyles drove in Dalton with an RBI single to make the score 12-0.
Once Geraldine finally got out of the inning, Benefield struck out three of the four batters he faced in the top of the fifth inning to win the game by mercy rule. Fyffe’s two wins in the County Tournament has gave them victories in fourteen of their last fifteen games. Fyffe’s next games are area match-ups with the Ider Hornets.
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