Another late rally fell just short for the Bluffton All-Stars on Tuesday, ending their run at the Dixie Youth Baseball AAA (10U) World Series in Laurel, Mississippi, with an 8-7 loss to Louisiana.
The South Carolina state champs found themselves in an early hole for the second straight game, as Louisiana answered Nicholas Carpenter’s RBI single in the top of the first with a pair of runs in the in the bottom half and one in the second, then added three on a defensive miscue in the third to open up a 6-1 lead.
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Bluffton pulled back to runs in the fourth when Nic Farrugia rocketed a double off the wall in the center to plate Henry Numssen and came around to score on Zack Szypczak’s double down the left-field line to cut the deficit to 6-3.
Finn Boyles came on in relief of Austin Broene in the fourth and worked out of a jam, stranding the bases loaded and limiting the damage to just one run, and the Bluffton All-Stars turned a double play to get out of another tough spot in the fifth with just one run coming across.
Trailing 8-3 entering their final at-bat, the Lowco squad went down swinging. The first six batters in the sixth reached base, including another RBI double off the center-field fence from Farrugia to kickstart the rally. Carpenter and Szypczak each reached on errors that forced home runs, and Noah Sepulveda singled to left to cut the margin to 8-7 with the bases loaded and one out.
Two stellar plays from the Louisiana first baseman extinguished Bluffton’s hopes, though, as he made a diving catch in foul territory and snared a hot shot for the final out.
Numssen, Boyles, and Farrugia each had two hits, and Farrugia, Carpenter, and Szypczak each drove in two runs for Bluffton, which finished the tournament with a 2-2 record and was one of the last six teams left standing with one win and two losses against the final four.
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