Resmondo's Wins 4th Straight
Smokey Mountain Classic
Maryville, TN. --- Thirty of the top teams from 19 different States traveled to Maryville, Tennessee to compete at the prestigious 43rd Annual Smoky Mountain Classic.
The Classic started on Friday night July 7th with a huge excited crowd on hand at the Sandy Springs Park main fields. Each year the bracket is set up so that there are 6 teams that win 2 games in a row on Friday and those 6 teams join the number 1 and number 2 seeds, who only have to win one game on Friday, and they all meet on Saturday in the final 8 on the main field - Sandy Springs #3.
Saturday's "Final 8" of the winner's bracket games:
The final 8 competition started off with Shoppe and Team Combat/Laser Vision. Brett Helmer and the "Derby Boys" from Combat came out swinging for the fences and put on the best home run show of the day as they run ruled Shoppe 37-14. Helmer was 5-5 with 5 homers and 14 RBI in the game.
In the second game at 10:30 AM, GTL beat EWS 20-14. The ball definitely was beginning to fly less and less as the temperature approached 90 degrees and the humidity softened the ball. GTL was led by Sean McDonald who had a pair of clutch home runs.
In the 3rd game at noon, Resmondo beat Combat/Pharmapar 22-13 with a nice balance of timely defensive plays and a couple of key homer's.
In the final game of the winner's quarter finals at 1:30 the ball just would not go as Suncoast wrestled a 7-6 win away from Famous Sports.
Final 4 of Winner's Bracket:
In the semi-finals GTL used some great pitching from Geno Buck and a smothering defense which included the first of a string of rare 3-6-5 double plays to completely shut down Team Combat/Laser Vision 19-2.
In the second semi-final, Resmondo held off Suncoast 20-14 as the ball started to fly a little bit towards the end of the game.
Winner's bracket championship game:
The winner's bracket championship game was a great match up between Resmondo and GTL, the number one and number two teams in the country, the competition began at 7:30 PM in front of a hefty crowd and was a great game from start to finish.
GTL held the lead much of the game but stranded 14 runners in the first 7 innings and was unable to run rule Resmondo. Going into the top of the 7th Resmondo was down 22-16.
GTL got 2 of the first 3 Resmondo batters out and then Resmondo just refused to make the final out and put up a 7 spot to take the lead 23-22. In the bottom of the inning GTL scored 1 but left the winning run on third with 2 out to send the game into extra innings. Resmondo scored 5 in the 8th to steal the victory. The game was filled with some high drama, some great defensive plays, and some long home runs.
On Sunday morning, the day started at 8 AM with a loser's bracket semi-final rematch of the 2nd round contest between Famous and Team 454. Famous would beat Team 454 for the second time in the tournament by an impressive 35-17 mark and advanced to play GTL who then sent them home 34-14 in the loser's bracket championship.
In the first game of the championship GTL hung within striking distance of Resmondo for awhile but never was able to explode offensively and Resmondo run ruled them 27-12 when Scott Striebel hit a walk off homer in the bottom of the 6th inning. Resmondo won their fourth straight Smoky Mountain Classic, and added to their 2011 trophy case with their 7th tournament win of the year.
