By By BRUCE HIXON – Sports Editor
Experience can take a team just so far.
Like Huntsville, perhaps.
Huntsville and the state tournament will be the next destination of the Brewton Little League 11-year-old all-stars after they clobbered Covington County 12-2 in five innings Thursday to claim the district tournament championship at Andalusia.
Many members of this year's Brewton 11s were on last year's Brewton 9-10 all-star team that qualified for the state tournament at Mobile.
Both Brewton wins in district competition came at the expense of Covington County, but in vastly different ways.
In Sunday's first-round win, Brewton had just three hits and scratched out a 2-0 win. In Thursday's rematch, Brewton collected 11 hits and scored in every inning.
Thursday's win will officially go down as a come-from-behind win for Brewton.
Brewton pitcher Collin Graves got off to a tough start. The first three Covington County batters, Zach Turvin, Thomas Rambo and Jameson King, reached via hit by a pitch, an infield single and a walk. Turvin scored on a wild pitch and A.J. Bailey drove Rambo home on a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0.
Any comfort Covington County felt at that point quickly turned to discomfort when Brewton strung together a seven-run uprising in the bottom of the first inning against pitcher Jameson King.
Shawn Odom walked and Graves was hit by a pitch. That set up an RBI double by Conner Denton that shaved Covington County's lead in half. After Randy Davis walked, Kameron Winn's two-run double put Brewton on top 3-2.
Parker Reiss was hit by a pitch and Christian Purvis came through with a two-run single that made it 5-2. A single by Louis Miller preceded Odom's second hit of the inning, a two-run double that made it 7-2.
Brewton's lead went to 8-2 in the second when Denton doubled and Winn drove in his third run of the game with a single.
Odom walked, went to third on a throwing error and scored on a wild pitch in the third inning that took the lead to 9-2. In the fourth, Graves made Covington County pay for walks to Purvis and Odom with a two-run triple that put Brewton's advantage to 11-2.
Brewton was able to end the game an inning early on the 10-run rule in the bottom of the fifth when Davis walked, Winn singled and Etheridge hit a run-scoring fielders choice.
After the slow start, Graves settled down and allowed just one more hit after the first inning. He allowed just two hits over four innings before Denton pitched a scoreless fifth inning to help close things out.
The 11-year-old state tournament kicks off in Huntsville July 16.
At Andalusia
Covington Co. 200 00 – 2 2 0
Brewton 711 21 – 12 11 2