Tigers go to State

From Times staff reports

Sat, May 17 2008

— COLLINSVILLE — It was an up and down — and fortunately for Fort Gibson, back up — weekend for Fort Gibson.
Saturday’s 4-0 victory against Collinsville was the finishing touch on getting the Tigers their first ticket to the Class 4A state baseball tournament since 2003. The Tigers will play Weatherford at 5 p.m. Thursday in a quarterfinal matchup at Shawnee High School.
It wasn’t a smooth ride getting there.
Before Friday’s dreadful 10-0 shutout loss to Collins-ville, Fort Gibson coach Randy Smith said that he had a bad feeling about the way that game would turn out. There was plenty of success hangover from Thursday.
The Red-White Rumble with Hilldale turned into a Red-White Runaway with the Tigers’ 23-1 thrashing of their rival in the opening-round game. Fort Gibson erupted for 18 runs on 13 hits in the fourth inning, sending 22 batters to the plate. The Tigers scored 13 of the runs before the first out in the inning was made, a pop out by winning pitcher Taylor Richey. A three-run home run by Grant Mitchusson, the Tigers’ No. 9 batter, highlighted the inning. He also had an RBI single in the outburst.
Fort Gibson then beat Collinsville 10-6, and it was just coming too easy.
“I think it all just got to us,” he said. “We got in late last night, we didn’t know who we were going to play all day — I think for a while there the kids thought they were going to get Hilldale again — I was afraid that we were going to come out flat and we did.”
Before Saturday’s matchup with the same Cardinal squad, Smith was feeling much more confident. The wind was blowing in, he had Taylor Richey on the mound, and the mood surrounding the young Fort Gibson bunch was entirely different than it had been a day earlier.
As it turned out, Richey confirmed Smith’s posititive attitude. The Fort Gibson right-hander dominated a potent Collinsville lineup, allowing just two hits and three walks, striking out five in seven shutout innings as the Tigers earned a 4-0 victory.
“I had a talk with him this morning,” Smith said. “I told him that I set it up this way, I didn’t throw him yesterday on purpose and that win or lose I wanted him on the mound today.”
Things didn’t quite start out the way that Fort Gibson (25-7) wanted. The Tigers were retired in order in the top of the first. Robbie Nunez struck out to lead things off and Brandon Jackson was hit by a pitch. Cale Parnell then fouled out on a hit and run and Jackson was doubled off of first.
Then in the bottom of the first, Cardinals’ leadoff batter Riley Murr roped a double into right field, immediately putting Collinsville in striking distance of an early lead.
But for Richey (7-3), that extra-base hit was just what the doctor ordered.
“After that, everything sort of clicked for me,” he said. “The hit was my fault, I left a two-seam up and he hit it hard, but after that I really felt in control.”
After allowing the single he struck out Brad George swinging, then intentionally walked the dangerous Kevin Phillips before retiring Garrett Tole and D.J. Neighbors in order to get out of the inning.
“That was, I don’t want to say the turning point, but it was definitely a critical point in the game,” said Collinsville coach Tony Reeder in reference to Fort Gibson escaping the first inning with no runs allowed. “We had a chance to get a lead and it didn’t happen. They’re a young team and you never know how they would have responded to that. But to his credit he got them out of that and we really never recovered with the bats.”
Instead it was Fort Gibson that jumped out and took advantage of the shift in momentum. Jordan Peacock led off the second with a single to right field, advanced to third on a single by Billy Waltrip and then scored on a two-out single by Kacy Cook to put the Tigers ahead for good.
The Tigers had a chance to further expand their early advantage in the top of the third. Nunez led off with an easy groundball to shortstop, but Neighbors — in at short in place of Phillips — threw high to first, allowing the Tigers’ shortstop to trot easily to second base. Nunez would then steal third, and hold there on Jackson’s groundout to the hot corner before Parnell was hit by a pitch and Peacock walked to load the bases.
Before Peacock’s walk, Parnell had stolen second, taking away the inning-ending double play from the Cardinals. But with Peacock’s free-pass, the double play was back on and that gave Neighbors a shot at atonement for his earlier misdeed.
Richey connected on a Phillips’ fastball and chopped a grounder to the Collinsville (25-12) shortstop, who fielded it, tagged second, spun and fired to first to complete to double play and end the inning and get the Cardinals out of an ugly jam.
But the Tigers would push ahead three more runs in the top of the fifth off of Phillips (2-1), who allowed all four runs on seven hits and one walk, but one was all that Richey would need.
“I’ve got an amazing group of guys behind me,” he said. “I was always confident up there. We had a couple of errors but they were never a big thing.”

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