Not knowing about the teams they were about to face may have been the best thing that could have happened to the Boonville Pirates freshmen baseball team in the Lebanon JV Tournament back on Saturday, April 26th.

Although the Pirates went into the Lebanon JV Tournament not knowing what to expect against teams like Mountain Grove, Waynesville and Lebanon, they more than welcomed the challenge by beating all three teams in convincing fashion to capture the championship.

While facing Mountain Grove in the opening round of the tournament, the Pirate freshmen appear to have their hands full while playing to a 2-2 tie after one. However, it was all Boonville after that while exploding for five runs in each of the second and third innings of play for a 12-2 victory.

Boonville freshmen coach Roger Stone said he was glad the team got to play in the tournament since they had four games cancelled earlier in the week.

“This was a JV tournament but we took our freshmen team, plus Jordan Crowley to play,” Stone said. “It was good experience for all the players. We played some good competition and it allowed us to gauge how far along these players have come. Based on the output the players have gotten better but they have not peaked in any way. They are going to get better as they get older and gain more experience. We outscored three teams 30-2, we out-hit them 33-12 and our pitchers struck out 13, walked four in 12 innings.
“We 10-run ruled the first-two teams we played and then in the Lebanon game, we faced the best pitchers we have seen all year long and still hit the ball well by collecting 10 hits. Our hitters only struck out five times all day and walked 18 times, we stole 11 bases and no one stole on us. Overall, it was a great day in all facets of the game and we brought home a first place trophy. In this game, we gave up two runs in the top of the first but Crowley settled down and threw a great game after that. As it turned out, those were the only runs we gave up all day. The hitters came out and after we got two outs, Kellen Kempf hit a double to right center and scored on Jeremy Davis’s single that stated our hitting barrage for the day. We scored five runs in each of the next-two innings to get a 10-run rule. All starting nine players each had a hit and contributed in some way to get the victory.”

See Wednesday's Boonville Daily News for the rest of the story.