The Cardinals baseball team did not win the 14-and-under title this past weekend at the Charlie Dunn tournament, but it can say it did everything it could do just to get there.
The Cardinals played the Cubs on Saturday in a pitcher’s duel between Jacob Bartel and Cody Easterday. Neither pitcher allowed a run through the game’s first four innings.
In the fifth, Cubs’ slugger Caulder Barnes got on base, then scored the first run on an RBI-single by Easterday.
In the bottom of the inning, the Cubs’ defense, led by Chase Winter and Keston Trebbe, both from Augusta, kept the Cardinals from scoring after loading the bases.
But in the end, the Cardinals scored two runs in the final inning for the 2-1 win.
As if that wasn’t intense enough, on Sunday, the Cardinals and Cowley Reds were locked in an epic, 12-inning marathon game. Bartel hit the game-winning RBI at the top of the 12th inning, and Keil Stauffer made a tagout for the final out of a 4-3 win.
The Cardinals went on to lose in the 14-and-under championship to the undefeated Athletics by a score of 11-3.
