The bats got hot, Mississippi Royals come close to world series win – Mississippi’s Best Community Newspaper

NATCHEZ — An area 11-and-under journey baseball workforce referred to as the Mississippi (MS) Royals, which has gamers from Natchez, Vidalia, and Monterey, lately competed within the USSSA Mississippi Gulf Coast International AA World Collection in Gulfport and completed runner-up.

Mississippi Royals head coach Adam Conerly mentioned the workforce did fairly properly within the AA World Collection, which passed off from Thursday, June 30,’ by way of Sunday, July 3, contemplating the extent of competitors and having to cope with the excessive warmth and humidity throughout the event.

Over the 4 days of event play, the Royals performed a complete of eight video games — together with 4 video games that Sunday after dropping to the losers’ bracket the day earlier than in bracket play. And it was wonderful that they superior all the best way to the title recreation.

“Thursday and Friday in pool play, we received one recreation and misplaced two. In bracket play, we received three video games and misplaced two,” Conerly mentioned. “We misplaced our first recreation Saturday, in order that put us within the backside of the losers’ bracket. We went again to our lodge later that day. We began again at 9 a.m. Sunday. They received all three video games to make it to the championship recreation.”

After advancing by way of the losers’ bracket, the Royals would lose to the Hattiesburg Hawks in an in depth recreation, 3-1. Regardless of ending runner-up, Conerly mentioned we was actually pleased with the gamers for pushing by way of and persevering.

“Taking part in 4 video games in in the future is loads, particularly for 11-year-olds,” Conerly mentioned. “On Sunday, the day they received three video games, they’d 21 hits. So the bats have been scorching. Our pitchers did rather well. They struck out 11. We simply had wonderful defensive performs.”

Conerly not solely needed to acknowledge the gamers, but additionally assistant coaches Adam Flynn and Josh Seaside. He additionally mentioned he wasn’t shocked that his workforce performed in addition to it did and made all of it the best way to the championship recreation.

“Our youngsters needed to go down there and compete. Pitching, hitting, protection, strong baserunning. Coming into Sunday, they’d a really lengthy, arduous day forward of them as a result of each workforce forward of them was the next seed,” Conerly mentioned. “I used to be very blissful for them to place it collectively in the identical day and are available out in second place. It’s a really spectacular factor to do.”

Not solely did the Mississippi Royals did fairly properly in event play, however two of their gamers received two of the three particular person competitions the place they have been enjoying in opposition to no less than 60 different 11-year-olds.

Jacorrian Davis received the road-runner competitors, which Conerly described as a 90-foot timed dash, and Grant Carlton received the golden arm competitors, which is throwing accuracy.

The Mississippi Royals encompass eight gamers from Natchez — Peyton Conerly, Jax Seaside, Davis, Carlton, Stratton Flynn, Charles Grant, Andrew Goldman, and Cooper Hale, two gamers from Vidalia — Lucas Mullins and Gabe Wallace, and two gamers from Monterey — Blake and Rylan Barfoot.

“They go to totally different colleges. Some are from ACCS. Some are from Cathedral. Some are from Delta Constitution. Some from the Natchez public colleges. Some from the Monterey public colleges. So it’s a great combine of colleges,” Conerely mentioned.