RALEIGH — It was an exciting finish to the travel baseball season for the Richmond Rockies 14U team this past weekend, which also resulted in some new hardware.
The grassroots travel baseball organization, which is based in Richmond County, competed in the Raleigh Region Fall Curtain Call Tournament Saturday and Sunday.
In the showcase tournament, which was sponsored by Perfect Game, the Rockies put together a 3-1 record and finished as the Gold Bracket runner-up.
“The entire coaching staff is so proud of how well the team played,” Craig Stewart, one of the team’s three coaches, shared. “This was a really great way for our program to end the fall season. We played a lot of really good baseball and made a run at the championship against a strong opponent.
“The boys never quit hustling and remained competitive, no matter what the situation was,” he added. “Our first game Sunday was a great effort that saw the boys erase a six-run deficit and battle back to win it in extra innings. It was the kind of fight and win you want to see as coaches.”
Playing two games Saturday, the Rockies went 2-0 and earned the No. 2 seed for Sunday’s Gold Bracket. With its pitching and defense in check, Richmond only allowed two runs to score across both games.
Beginning Sunday’s action, the Rockies faced East Coast 14U (Winterville, N.C.) in what proved to be an extra-inning thriller.
In the early going, Richmond fell behind 6-0. On the mound, pitcher Noah Trexler kept East Coast off the board after the second inning and struck out 12 batters in the process.
Chipping away at their deficit, the Rockies rallied back to tie the score 6-6 to force extras. Winterville scored two runs in the top of the inning to take an 8-6 lead.
Not going away quietly, the Rockies rallied again, this time for good. With the bases loaded and one out, Sam O’Neal brought in two runners with a clutch double to tie the game.
Following an intentional walk to Jaxon Carlyle to reload the bases, it was Cooper Perkins who scored the game-winning walk-off run.
Taking advantage of the pitcher going from the windup, Perkins broke for the plate and stole home. He slid safely across the plate head first as the catcher scrambled to pick up a dropped strike to try to apply the tag.
Later in the day, the Rockies faced what Stewart called a “talented” AAA opponent in what played out as another back-and-forth battle. Despite leading for the majority of the game, the Rockies surrendered a 13-12 loss to finish as the runner-up.
Over the course of the Fall Curtain Call Tournament, the Rockies batted .358 as a team and posted a .488 on-base percentage. The team also averaged nearly a run per inning across its four games.
O’Neal led the lineup in batting average (.500) and total bases, while Riley Fields batted .444 and drove in several runs with key extra-base hits.
Carlyle and Jason Taylor each batted .429, and Taylor was named the tournament’s MVP Pitcher.
Members of this fall’s team were Carlyle, Fields, O’Neal, Perkins, Taylor, Trexler, Emery Arnette, Chase Baker, Drew Moree, Colton Trexler and Noah Wilson.
The Richmond Rockies 14U baseball team was coached by Stewart, Landon Cowick and Gary Trexler this season.
This fall, the Rockies went 17-7 overall. The team placed first or second in every tournament except one, and had a .500 or better record in every tournament it entered.
Sports editor’s note: All statistics and game information used in this article, as well as photos and video, were contributed by the Richmond Rockies’ coaching staff.
