By Staff
The weekend of May 9-11 turned out to be an exciting time for a few of our area youth.
Gulf Coast Lightning is a Boys 9 &Under travel team out of Pensacola, Florida that participated in the USSSA “Super NIT Road to Disney” tournament this past weekend in Birmingham for a chance to advance to their classes World Series.
Only the top two of the twelve teams in the 9 &under class would advance and Gulf Coast Lightning was one of them.
Coaches Rodney Wines and Scott Beaver would like to congratulate the following team members on their victory; Joshua Barnes No. 35 (Pensacola) ,Caleb Beaver No. 2 (Pensacola) , Joseph Booker No. 5 (Brewton) , Jacob Burke No. 00 (Pensacola) , Andrew Cash No. 1 (Flomaton), Matthew Estrada No. 22 (Pensacola) , Noland McGuffey No. 7 (Pensacola), Jackson Moore No. 12 (Century), Thomas Moore No. 10 (Century), Austin Morton No. 3 (Mobile), Riley White No. 8 (Pensacola), and Austin Wines No. 11 (Pensacola).
These boys went above and beyond to finish the tournament with a record of 5-2 against some very stiff competition.
The first game Friday night against the SMP Bucs (Hoover, AL) ended with a winning score of 15-2.
Saturday's games began with a win over the Alabama Wizards (Pleasant Grove, AL) by a score of 13-5 and finished up with the first loss against the TPSA Bandits (Cullman, AL) with a heartbreaking score of 9-10.
The loss Saturday put GC Lightning as the 5th seed which set them up for a Sunday jam packed with baseball.
The day started with another battle against the SMP Bucs, GCL came away with a 9-8 victory. Sunday's tournament was single elimination, you lose, you go home.
From this point forward these boys played some heads up baseball.
After back to back games they defeated the North Alabama Giants (Madison, AL) 10-4 and the Bandits (Ringgold, GA) 8-6 to make it to the championship game against the Memphis Tigers (Memphis, TN).
Memphis wound up on the winning end of a very exciting game by a score of 4-6. Gulf Coast Lightning will now go on to the 2008 USSSA Elite Major World Series the first week in August in Orlando, Florida.
The Gulf Coast Lightning 9 year-old and under traveling team from Pensacola will be one of 24 teams competing for the 9U championship title. Thank you to the following local sponsors whose support made it possible for these boys to enjoy this achievement;
Davis Supply (Brewton), Montgomery Industrial Gases (Brewton), Southeast Safety and Industrial Supply (Brewton) and USA Ready Mix.