Breaker Boys cleanup hitter Brody Foose waits for an offering from Team Boston’s Glenn Mello.
By Will Harrigan
According to Breaker Boys 12U coach T.J. Trout, his squad came to Diamond Nation this weekend mired in a slump.
If one watched his team play this weekend, Trout could be accused of a bit of sandbagging.
Capping off a dominant Saturday at Diamond Nation, the Breaker Boys of Central Pennsylvania stormed to a 10-0 victory over Team Boston Academy to finish 2-0 in Pool A play. Having defeated Tribe Baseball, 8-2, in its earlier game, the Breaker Boys will play the Locked In Expos on Sunday afternoon with a spot in the semifinals on the line.
“We really haven’t been hitting the ball well lately, but we’ve really had a good two games here,” Trout said. “I’m excited to see what we can do for the rest of the tournament.”
Team Boston Academy finished the day 0-2, having lost their first game of the day to the Expos, 11-1. They will finish out their tournament at 2:15 on Sunday, when they play Tribe Baseball before heading back to Massachusetts.
That suddenly well-oiled machine the Breakers drove on offense wasted no time building a lead.
After Breakers pitcher Chase Slotcavage pitched a scoreless first, Peyton Schley and Landon Trout set the table with one out singles, setting up clean-up batter Brody Foose.
Foose got hold of a Team Boston offering and launched it over the right field fence for an opposite field home run, giving his squad a 3-0 lead.
“I wasn’t sure if it would get over or not, so I kept running as hard as I could,” Foose said. “It felt great once I saw it go over.”
Breakers right-fielder Brody Hesse, who reached on a walk, would also come around to score later in the inning as a result of a Team Boston fielding mishap. That exact same scenario played out for Kole Rollenhagen, giving the winners a 5-0 edge after an inning.
Relentless, the Breakers went right back to work in the third after a scoreless second. Foose would get the rally started with a single, which Hesse would chase with a single two batters later.
A wild pitch would set up Slotcavage to help himself, as the pitcher drove in a pair of runs with an opposite single to extend the lead to 7-0. Chase Yoder would drive in Slotcavage with an RBI single a batter later.
The last big blow of the day for the Breakers came off the bat of Rollenhagen, who blasted an RBI double into the right-center field gap to give the Breakers a critical 10-0 edge.
Slotcavage would come back out and pitch a scoreless fourth, thus ending the game and putting the 10-run rule in effect. He would not allow a hit in four innings of work, and only walked two Team Boston batters.
Branden Levine would reach third in the first inning after two stolen bases, constituting Team Boston’s best threat. Nolan McKinnon reached base on a walk for the Massachusetts-based squad.