Richlands stars stay alive with win

By DAVE COX/Staff
HONAKER- Richlands showed a lot more confidence than it did in an earlier loss to Lebanon when the 11-12 year-old All-Star team took the field last Sunday for its second game of the District 11 Little League baseball tournament.
That confidence showed in an exciting 3-1 win over Clinch Valley to keep Richlands alive in the double elimination event. The win pitted the Blues against Haysi in a Monday, June 30 contest at Doug Bailey Field in Honaker. The Tigers fell victim to a strong Tazewell squad in a later Sunday contest.
Wesley Mays crashed a three-run homer just inside the left field foul line in the fifth inning to erase a 1-0 Clinch Valley lead and hand the Blues their first victory of the tournament. Mays also stood out on the mound, hurling a one-hitter through 5 2/3 innings. Mays had to leave the game one out short of a complete game because of the Little League pitch-count rule. Andrew Guerriero came on in relief to register the final out of the game to preserve the one-hitter. Mays struck out 13 batters. He retired the side on strikeouts in the second and fourth innings. Mays was just the one hit and two walks shy of hurling a perfect game.
Clinch Valley scored its only run of the day in the bottom of the third inning without the benefit of a hit. Willie Blevins walked and later scored on a throwing error by Richlands.
The Blues collected six hits off of two Clinch Valley pitchers. Mays got two of them as did Eli McReynolds. Ben Brown and Jay Harrison had one hit each for Richlands.