When the dust settled in the Dixie Baseball AAA Majors (age 11-12) All-Stars District 6 Tournament, the county’s lone participant kept its summer run alive.
Hernando Youth League’s Brooksville entry into the event held at Ridge Manor Community Park assured it would move on to the state tournament, starting July 9 in Liberty County, by finishing in second place.
The Brooksville squad went 2-2, with bookend losses to district champion South Lake, 14-4 on June 17 and 9-8 in Tuesday night’s final.
In between, Brooksville won both ends of a doubleheader on June 18, 22-0 over San Antonio and 15-5 versus Wildwood.
“I think overall we played well,” Brooksville head coach Tyrone Thompson said. “South Lake is a really good team, a really tough team to play. I thought we did really well coming back playing them in the second game, making it closer than the first game.
“Probably our hitting (was the strongest). Almost everyone was involved and got hits in multiple games. That was good for our team.”
Isaiah Barry homered twice in the last contest, adding to the one he launched in the opener. Anthony Talpa was an offensive standout throughout the tournament, going a combined 7-for-8 at the plate.
On the mound, Dylan Schatzel tossed three shutout innings against San Antonio, giving up one hit and striking out six of the nine batters he faced.
Though Brooksville ultimately couldn’t solve South Lake, a better showing than the first meeting provided positive momentum moving forward.
“The second game we got a much better start and Schatzel was pitching in the second game and did well. A couple of errors cost us a couple runs in that second game,” Thompson said. “We’ve got to get rid of those errors that cost us, cleaning up the defense a bit (before states).
“We expect to go in (to states) and play well against whoever we end up playing. That’s our expectations. … We’ve got a lot of kids here that were on a T-Ball state team a few years ago and I think this is their first opportunity to go back again. A lot of them are excited.”
Follow Chris Bernhardt Jr. on Twitter @cpbernhardtjr.