Finishing off a perfect week that included five straight wins, the third ranked Silo Rebels throttled Rattan, 8-1, late Saturday night to claim the Rattan Fall Classic title.
The Rebels advanced to the finals by toppling Tupelo (5-3) and Wright City (7-2) while Bryan County mate and fourth rated Calera notched three consecutive wins after its opening round 8-3 loss to Tushka.
One more week remains in the 2A regular season with Silo, Calera and Colbert all in line to host best-of-three regional playoff series.
Pitching was the story for Silo as they cruised through the tournament bracket by allowing only one earned run.
Nolan Northcott fired six strong innings, yielding only one hit with seven strikeouts in the finale. Blane Beauchamp was in command throughout the seven-inning semifinal with Wright City as he allowed just three hits and fanned six. Jacob Wright allowed just three hits in five innings for the opening round triumph.
The Rebels got a big performance by Cannon Atwood at the plate in the championship win as he tallied three hits, including a pair of doubles, and drove in one. Zane Sander chipped in two hits and scored twice while reaching base every plate appearance.
It was Wright’s three hits, two from Sander and a Northcott home run that propelled Silo to the semifinal win. Cord Standridge had two hits in the Tupelo win.
Calera Baseball
Following the first round defeat the Bulldogs were fueled by strong pitching on their way to the consolation championship.
In a 1-0 triumph over Stuart, senior Logan Bumgarner twirled a three-hit shutout that included six strikeouts. The lone Calera run came in the first inning as Bumgarner singled with two outs and came around to score two batters later on a Talon Rose hit.
They responded with another 6-3 decision against Tupelo as Hazyn Applegate scattered five hits and two unearned runs over five innings for the pitching win. Hoff Weil and Jaron Varner each belted home runs.
A 5-0 blanking of Wister saw Zaiden Craige toss seven stellar frames that saw the right-hander yield just four hits while fanning three. Weil had a triple and two RBI as Demarcus Dunn also chipped in a double.
Earlier in the week Calera notched a second straight win over rival Colbert, posting a 6-2 verdict. Craige was also the winning hurler in that one, allowing seven hits in six frames.
Calera made the most of just five hits but one of those was a two-run homer by Weil.
Colbert Baseball
The Leopards split a pair of games against highly-ranked foes Fort Cobb-Broxton and Dale in the Am-Po Festival.
Colbert doubled up Class B power Fort Cobb with a 4-2 win before dropping a 4-0 verdict to Dale.
Tucker Shields earned the pitching win over Fort Cobb as he worked five strong innings, allowing an unearned run on three hits. Colbert sliced together seven singles in the game, two of which came from Brett Parsons.
The Leopards were limited to only a pair of hits by Dale with one of those being a double from Eric Hokett.
