By By Brian C. Robinson / staff writer
August 4, 2002
El Dorado, Arkansas survived elimination due to a clutch performance by Tyler Anglin and Brette Pittard Saturday night.
Anglin entered the game in the top of the fourth inning, with a two run lead, but he inherited two runners that eventually scored due to a double and a pass ball.
Earlier, both teams traded runs in a seesaw affair before El Dorado staked claim to a 4 run lead.
El Dorado loaded the bases with three consecutive singles by Matt Alexander, Tyler Anglin, and Jack Carter, then Brett Patard stepped to bat and smashed a double to make the score 3-2.
Mason McCurdy and Ben Miller followed with run scoring hits of their own to help widen the gap 5-2.
By inning end, El Dorado was seemingly in control of the game 6-2.
Nederland quickly responded by loading the bases with their own set of consecutive singles by Tony Borel, Matt Robinson, and Ryan Butler, all of who eventually scored helping Nederland, Texas pull even, 6-6.
After that, it was a tense and well pitched match-up as Anglin and Mattison Smith both settled to shut down their respective opponents until the bottom of the 7th.
Mattison Smith, having pitched a gutsy performance, was asked to retire the Arkansas crew once more to give them another chance to win the game in extra innings. Matt Alexander lead-off the 7th with a clean single to spark a 7th inning rally by the home team.
After Anglin followed Alexander with a rip of his own, El Dorado could taste victory as they held runners on 1st and third with no-outs.
After Nederland retired Jack Carter on a pop fly to right field, they found themselves with first base open and the cleanup hitter coming to bat.
Rather than putting the cleanup hitter on first and setting up a force out at any base, Nederland opted to challenge Brette Pittard who had previously doubled to score two runs.
Pittard who had not seen many pitches on the inside part of the plate the entire summer, according to Mills, finally got one in his wheel house and lined a rope to the left field wall to score the winning run and break the hearts of the hard fighting Texas squad, keeping El Dorado alive for another day.