Last Saturday, the Armadillo JV baseball team traveled to Blanco to participate in a 4 team round robin tournament. This allowed the team to play in three games against other JV teams and to gain much needed experience.

Our first game was against Harper who we faced earlier this year at our own tournament. Kolton Ellis started the game off perfect as a leadoff batter by hitting the ball hard off the fence in left center field. We quickly scored two runs with other hits by Jordan Watson, JT Mathis, and Ryan Guidroz.

On the mound for our team was Micheal McKinnerney who did a fine job of controlling the Longhorn batters, not letting many get on base, and controlling the runners when they did reach base. Good defensive plays by TJ Hibler, JT Mathis, Kolton Ellis, and Kelan Verette only allowed Harper to score 2 runs for the whole game.

In the other innings, our bats stayed alive and brought in four more runs with hits by Dylan Rosales, Dallas Caldwell, and Kelan Verette. This proved good enough to seal the win 6-2 and allowed the entire team to participate in our batting order.

The second game of the day was against Navarro. Our first time to bat went 1, 2, and 3. It took an inning or so before our batters figured out their pitching. Pitching for us was JT Mathis and also started off the game well by sitting down the first eight of their batters.

It was the second inning when our team rallied for 3 runs with hits again by Ellis, Watson, Mathis, and Guidroz. In the bottom half, Navarro was able to get a runner on, advanced him with a bunt, stole third and scored on a single. This made the score 3-1 Armadillos.

We held our own over the next two innings. In the fifth, Navarro got a couple of runners on, we made some defensive miscues (errors), and this allowed them to take the lead 4-3. We brought in Ryan Guidroz to finish pitching. Three more runs ended up coming across. We did not bat very well the last inning or so, and eventually time ran out. We lost 3-7, making us 1-1 on the day so far.

Our last game was against the host team, the Blanco Panthers. Knowing their talent and reputation we had been saving Ryan Guidroz to match up with an ace pitcher and very good, big batters. This game resulted in just what we had hoped, an awesome pitching duel. Both pitchers allowed one run early on. After that, it was all pitching and solid defense that protected that exact score. Guidroz eventually tallied 11 strikeouts. Defensive plays on bunts by TJ Hibler, Jordan Watson (who caught every inning all day long), and Micheal McKinnerney kept the Panther batters in check throughout the game. There was time to even go into the bottom of the eighth inning. The first batter did get a single, but was put out at second trying to advance anyway, because time was officially out. This was quite the moral victory, especially when the second game of the day did not go as we thought it should have.

Kolton Ellis, and Ryan Guidroz were named All-Tournament.

It was a tremendous team effort and every single person played a part in it. Thank you to the parents, fans and visitors who also travelled and made plans, arrangements, and offered help during the day. It was very much appreciated. It was the most fun that a 1 win, 1 loss, 1 tie kind of day could have and I am proud to be able to coach this bunch of boys.