Connors State vs. UAFS in Region II baseball finals

May 11, 2008 06:04 pm

— Arkansas Fort Smith beat Connors 5-4 on Sunday afternoon to force a second and decisive game in the Region II baseball championship tournament in Bartlesville.

Connors, which had come from behind in two previous games in the tournament against Eastern, flirted with it again as the Cowboys tied the game on three separate occasions.

The first came in the sixth. Down 2-0, Brett Coffman doubled off the wall in right-center, moving Brandon Smith to third. Smith scored on a throwing error on the same play to knot the game.

Then in the eighth, after UAFS went back on top on Jared Richmond's solo home run, Justin Worby, whose game-ending grand slam eliminated Eastern on Saturday, hit a two-out RBI single.

In the ninth, UAFS again took the lead, this time on Muskogee High-ex Jordan Sallis's two-out RBI single. Connors' third answer came when Brandon Smith walked and later scoredon a dropped third strike with two outs.

For the third consecutive inning, UAFS scored. Matt Whiting's one-out single made it 5-4, and this time Connors would have no answer.

The second game got underway at approximately 5 p.m.