The Clarksdale 10-year-old baseball all-stars finished second in the south district in the state tournament in Indianola earlier in the month.
The next stop for the all-stars will be the World Series in Southaven this weekend.
Clarksdale beat Indianola 22-12, Greenwood 7-5 and Starkville 20-3. Then, Clarksdale lost 14-8 and 7-8 to Starkville.
“We built our team on pitching and defense,” coach Shaun Redwine said. “Our pitchers are learning to locate and throw strikes and our defense is what we count on to win our ballgames. When our defense is good, we’re good, as is any club.”
Redwine said Tre Washington and Samuel Johnson are carrying the team in hitting.
“They’re both power, contact hitters doing a good job leading us so far,” Redwine said.
Rhymes Chess and Payton Burton are at the top of the lineup and have come through.
The 10-year-olds have a handful of pitchers led by Ethan Holland, Jonathan Redwine and Terrell Johnson. Washington and Burton are relief pitchers.
“We pitch to contact because we count on our defense to make plays,” Coach Redwine said. “We’re on a pitch count, so we’re not trying to strike every kid out. We use USA pitch count rules, which limits every kid to 75 a game, so we have to limit that and try to pitch to contact.”
Defense will be the key in the World Series.
“We’ve got to improve defensively, keep our head straight,” Redwine said. “We made a couple of throwing errors in the district to help Starkville win the thing. Overall, defensively, we’re pretty strong through outfield and infield.”
Redwine encouraged everyone to make it to Southaven. The first game is likely Saturday morning and the brackets will come out on Friday.
