Jul. 9—The Enid Majors snuck away with a win in their first game of the Connie Mack South Plains Regional, 9-4 against Dulin’s Dodgers (Texas) at David Allen Memorial Ballpark on Thursday.
The Dodgers jumped out to a 4-2 lead after scoring three runs in the bottom of the first and one run in the second inning. The Majors gave up a single to Owen Roth before walking two straight batters to load the bases.
Gardener Lawrence hit a ground ball on the next at-bat that wasn’t fielded cleanly by the Majors, allowing the Dodgers to score two easy runs. The Majors hit two batters and walked a third to set up a sac-fly by Ian Collier with the bases loaded to put the Dodgers up 4-2.
“We didn’t pitch it well early,” Enid Majors head coach Kris Webb said. “We made one mistake, and that’s what happens sometimes in big games, they caught a big break early but we fought back.”
Enid scored two runs in the opening inning and were held scoreless until a three-run fourth inning to regain the lead. Deer Creek’s Bryce Logan started out the game with a lead-off double and eventually scored on a two RBI double by Kingfisher’s Ian Daugherty.
The Majors had a chance to take a 6-4 lead into the fifth, when Zandt Payne was called out on a slide to home plate. Webb disputed the call with the official and was ejected from the game.
“There were a couple plays at home plate that I disagreed with, but the boys fought hard,” Webb said after the game.
The Majors drove in four more runs in the sixth and held the Dodgers scoreless for the final five innings to come away with the win. With two on in the sixth inning, Bryce Logan lined an RBI single to center field and then Cayden Brumbaugh drove in two runs on a single to left field that the left fielder misjudged after losing the ball in the sun.
Yukon’s Carson Benge hit an RBI double to score Brumbaugh and extend Enid’s lead to five.
The undefeated Majors haven’t had much experience playing from behind this season. Webb said his message to his team was to try to focus on the positives, and was happy with their response.
“We kind of had some bad stuff happening, and we talked about wiping the negative stuff away, find some positive stuff and start going and they did a really good job of doing that,” he said.
The Majors played four different pitchers on Thursday, but only starting pitcher Bode Brooks and Zac McEachern threw over the 30 minimum pitches that would prevent them from playing on Saturday.
Webb called his bullpen “immaculate” on Friday. He plans to start former Enid Plainsman Maddux Mayberry on Friday against Stix Red and then Deer Creek’s Nate Rogalski in the second game against 316 Baseball Elliot.
The Majors will be playing a double header on Friday to make up for the game they missed on Wednesday. They’ll face Stix Red at 1:30 p.m. at NOC Enid’s Failing Field and then play 316 BB Elliot at 6 p.m. at David Allen Memorial Ballpark.
Masri is sports editor for the Enid News & Eagle.
Have a question about this story? Do you see something we missed? Do you have a story idea for Tarik? Send an email to tmasri@enidnews.com.