Wednesday, Jul. 02, 2008

Bradley's homer lifts Vine-Ingle

Oreos, ping-pong and more Oreos.

Vine-Ingle all-star Douglas Bradley's gameday routine Tuesday was pretty much like any other day of summer vacation.

"He ate about 5,000 Oreos," the 12-year-old right fielder's sister, Julie Anne, said. "And he asked me to play ping-pong about 20 times."

Bradley, however, saved his best "ping" for the Little League diamond Tuesday evening. He launched a grand-slam home run to power his team past Jones County 10-0 in a District 5 tournament elimination game.

"It hasn't set in yet," the Stratford Academy seventh-grader said of the first longball he has ever hit at Vine-Ingle's George Jones Field.

Bradley's second-inning shot to the bleachers in right-center came in Vine-Ingle's seven-run second.

In the scorebook, it was also Oreos for Jones County. A trio of Vine-Ingle pitchers no-hit the Jones County team. The game ended after four innings because Vine-Ingle had a 10-run lead.

Vine-Ingle moves on to play West Macon at 8 p.m. today.

"This obviously shows we're supposed to be in this tournament and we have the potential to win," said Vine-Ingle reliever Jonathan Hefner, who struck out four of the six batters he faced.

Of Bradley's four-run homer, Hefner said, "I was pretty pumped because we're really close friends."

Reliever Cutter Brown, who dealt a 1-2-3 fourth to end the game, said, "It was pretty fun. We just played a good game (Tuesday night)."

Just three Jones County batters reached - all on walks - and only one made it to second base.

Vine-Ingle, meanwhile, rang up 10 hits. Hefner had two. Left fielder Nicholas Butler also had two, including a triple, and scored three runs. Catcher Kamron Hunter (2-for-3, run) ripped a single off the wall in left-center to start the second and ignite a seven-run barrage.

Butler, the starting pitcher in his team's 9-0 setback against Warner Robins American on Saturday, said he hopes Tuesday's win puts Vine-Ingle on the road to a weekend rematch with the Houston County team.

"But we have to hit better if we play them again," Butler said.

Warner Robins (2-0) plays Bibb County's Western Little League (2-0) at 6 p.m. today in the six-team, double-elimination tournament, which has been pared to four teams.

For any hope of a rematch, however, Vine-Ingle has to get past West Macon, a 10-9 comeback winner over Macon Little League on Tuesday. West Macon rallied from a 7-1 deficit and threw out the would-be game-tying Macon baserunner trying to run home with two out in the sixth and final inning to end it.

In the second inning, in a Little League rarity - a girl-against-girl, pitcher-hitter matchup - Macon's Sha-Terria Jones stepped into the batter's box with West Macon's Cheyenne Heald on the mound.

Jones jumped on Heald's first pitch and banged it over the center-field wall for a two-run homer. That gave Jones' squad a 7-1 lead.

"That's Hollywood now," Macon head coach William Scruggs said of Jones' feat.

Jones said: "The thing was, I didn't know how she pitched. I just swung and it went over the fence."

Jones said she planned to talk to Heald after the game.

"She knows how to pitch," Jones said. "I'm gonna tell her she did a good job and ask her has she ever pitched to a girl."