Fair Baseball: Elite wins Battle of Bedford, advances to take on Ida
Bedford Elite won the Battle of Bedford.
Now Dave Donovan's team is aiming to be the best in the county.
Elite knocked off Bedford North 11-1 Sunday to move into the winners' bracket finals of the 63rd annual Monroe County Fair Baseball Tournament.
It was a game that Donovan was looking forward to and dreading at the same time.
“There definitely is a level of nervousness when you are playing kids from the same community,” he said. “It was a lot of fun and a lot of smiles.”
Elite advances to play Ida in the winners' bracket finals at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday.
Ida rode the first over-the-fence home run of the tournament to a 17-6 win over Ash Carleton Gold.
Monday's schedule pits Ash Carleton Gold against Monroe at 4:30 p.m. and Summerfield against Bedford North at 6:15. The winners of those two games will clash at 4:30 followed by the Ida-Bedford Elite contest.
Monroe 15, Dundee 6
Monroe was nursing a 1-0 lead before its offense heated up with nine runs in the third inning.
Hits by Jayson Hatala, Chris Fritz, Rudy Jordan, Noah Wilson, Nico Pilarellia, and Patrick Virley got the big inning rolling.
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Hatala scored three runs and Fritz, Jordan, Noah Wilson, Pillarelli, and Kyler Weiland two each.
Jordan threw two shutout innings.
Dundee scored all of its runs in the fourth inning Carter McKart had two hits, including a double.
Summerfield 9, Frenchtown 2
Eli Nevel tripled and singled, Karden Raymo tripled, and Wyatt Whiting doubled for Summerfield, which never trailed after scoring five times in the first inning.
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Raymo's triple was the key hit in the big inning.
Hits by Mason Trout, Zaedyn Linquist, and Logan Dorow produced Frenchtown's first run in the fifth inning. Tim Canine and Maxwell Burt also had hits.
Bedford Elite 11, Bedford North 1
Bedford North took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first as Kyle Dec doubled and came around to score.
The other Bedford team dominated after that, banging out 10 hits.
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Peyton Clawson went 3-for-3 including an RBI double in the bottom of the first. Tyler Sheehan, Pierce Buschmann, and Bentley Depew logged two hits apiece. Buschmann ripped a triple and David Donovan added a two-run single.
“We definitely came out swinging,” coach Donovan said. “The last game we struggled with the bats, so we came out an hour early today and focused on hitting.”
The pitching was strong as well. Doubles by Dec and David Claire were the only hits for North.
Ida 17, Carleton Gold 6
Brayden Healy crushed a pitch over the fence in leftfield with two runners on base to cap a four-run first inning.
That was the start of a big day for Healy, who went 3-for-4 with a double and a home run and scored four runs.
"He's a good hitter," Ida coach Eric Mason said. "That's his third or fourth (homer) of the year. He hits the ball hard."
Grayson Cunningham, Brody Lehr, and Parker Mason added two hits each, Logan Hennessey tripled, Dylan Gies doubled, and Aiden Daniel came through with a pinch-hit, two-run single.
Ida led 8-0 heading into the bottom of the third inning, but Gold fought back within 9-6.
"They made it a little difficult in the middle of the game," Mason said. "They're a good team. It was nice that we finished strong."
Danny Evans had three hits and Chase Reising doubled and tripled for Gold.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Fair Baseball: Elite wins Battle of Bedford, advances to take on Ida
