Gallery by Tina Laney
Bluefield – Coming into the 48th annual Coppinger Tournament, Tazewell, Va. had won the tournament more than any other program.
The Bulldogs now have to find a little extra room in their trophy case.
Pounding out 14 hits, Tazewell jumped Shady Spring from the start to win this year’s Coppinger championship 14-2 over the Tigers in six innings.
With Shady starter Alex Johnston pitching on three days rest, the Bulldogs took advantage, swinging from the start to establish a 4-0 lead after an inning, never relinquishing it.
“We’ve been preaching it, preaching it, preaching it all week that one thing we had to get better at was our approach at the plate,” Tazewell head coach Mike Fowler said. “Tonight they come out and they listened to us and I’m proud of them. We’ve still got things we need to work on but it’s great to come up here and play several teams we don’t have on the regular schedule. It’s always good to win the Coppinger Tournament.”
Jon Davis started the party with a leadoff single, eventually reaching third base on a passed ball.
A walked issued to Brayden Fowler set the plate for Tazewell’s No. 3 hitter Caleb O’Neal who lined a double to left field that plated Davis, moving Fowler to third. A passed ball allowed Fowler to make it 2-0 before a sac fly and a fielder’s choice accounted for the third and fourth Bulldog runs of the frame.
“The biggest thing is we were swinging for the fences a lot early in the year instead of simplifying our approach and early in the year we knew we had to work on that,” Fowler said of Friday’s adjustments. “Tonight everything kind of clicked. Shady’s pitcher was a little better and that helped us some. Early in the tournament we were seeing a little slower pitching than we were used to so tonight that helped us some. But it comes back to work ethic and the great group of kids that I have.”
Shady’s Jacob Meadows started the rally in the bottom of the frame by drawing a walk and scooting to third on a wild pitch, scoring on a Johnston groundout.
Unfortunately for the Tigers their scoring opportunities moving forward were limited by Tazewell southpaw Jackson Myers who allowed just one other run.
“He was a good pitcher and was hitting his spots but he mixed it up really well tonight,” Shady head coach Jordan Meadows said. “We were swinging at the curveballs in the dirt and he was taking advantage of it. He’s a good pitcher and once we got our opportunities we never executed but credit to them.”
Myers’ counterpart Johnston wasn’t as fortunate with the Bulldogs finding the gaps in the defense to place each hit, eventually scoring one more run off the senior before he was pulled in the third with the bases loaded.
“We knew Alex coming in on three days rest after throwing 111 pitches – it’s just one if things where we play to win,” Meadows said. “We tried to give it a go and you could just tell the velocity was off and they hit the baseball. Credit to them. I work with Fowler and he’s a great guy and had his team ready to play today.”
Following Johnston’s exit Tazewell kept its pace up, plating three more runs in the third to take an 8-1 advantage that grew to 9-2 after an RBI triple from Tyler Hash in the fourth.
Shady’s last real threat came in the fifth when Tyler Mackey and Aden Seabolt reached on a walk and single, respectively, to open the inning, but a pair of swinging strikeouts took the wind out of the Tigers’ sails.
Tyler Reed managed to bring Mackey in with a single and an error at shortstop loaded the bases for David Young but Myers secured his third swinging strikeout of the inning to diffuse the threat.
“Jackson done an awesome job,” Fowler said. “After the first inning he hit his spots. When Jackson is on, I put him against anybody of course we’ve got three really good pitchers. I think we pitched almost three complete games in this tournament. We knew that was one of our strong suits coming in so if we could put our hitting together with our pitching, it should be a good year and we knew that coming in.”
Davis, who finished the evening 4-for-4 with three RBIs, earned Tournament MVP honors.
Tazewell improves to 6-2 while Shady drops to 10-3 and will travel to Riverside on Monday before returning to Bowen Field to face Bluefield on Tuesday.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
T: 404 114 – 14 14 2
SS: 100 100 – 2 5 0
Pitching and catching – T: Myers (5IP), Patterosn (1IP) and Fowler; SS: Johnston (2 IP), Young (3 IP), Reed (1 IP). WP: Myers, LP: Johnston.
Hitting – T: Davis 4-4 (3 RBI), Fowler 2-4 (RBI), O’Neal 1-4 (2B, RBI), Childress 1-2, Blankenship 1-1, Hash 3-4 (3B, RBI), Cline 2-4 (3 RBI); SS: Jacob Meadows 2-3, Alex Johnston (RBI), Josh Lovell 1-3 (2B), Aden Seabolt 1-3, Tyler Reed 1-3.
