Choctaw baseball wins Justin Richards Scholarship tourney title

By TRAVIS DOWNEY
Northwest Florida Daily News
315-4476 | travisd@nwfdailynews.com

CRESTVIEW - The Choctawhatchee baseball team erased an early 2-0 deficit and answered a valiant comeback effort from Northside (Ga.) in the bottom of the seventh with a four-run top half of the eighth for a 9-5 win at host Crestview in Saturday's Justin Richards Scholarship Tournament final.

Brian Moore recorded six strikeouts over seven strong innings while Tanner Black went 3-for-5 at the plate with three RBIs, the final two of which came on a first-pitch swinging triple that gave the Indians the lead for good in the eighth.

"He's a competitor," Choctaw coach Scott Johnson said. "In baseball sometimes you're the windshield and sometimes you're the bug, tonight we were the windshield."

Early on it looked to be the other way around, as Moore labored through a lengthy first inning. North-side pushed across two runs in the frame as Moore was charged with three walks and a single.

Choctaw cut into the Northside lead in the second when Miguel Paulino led off the frame with a hard-hit triple to the fence in center field and later scored on an infield single off the bat of Moore.

Choctaw plated two more runs in the third, the first coming on an RBI single off the bat of Black and the second once again provided by Moore, who lifted a sacrifice fly deep into right field to score Black.

The back-and-forth contest continued into the bottom of the seventh, where the Indians entered hold-ing on to a slim 5-4 advantage. Moore retired the first batter and then erased a base on balls by picking off the Patriots' runner at first base.

Then the wheels fell off.

Northside's next batter reached on an error and later scored on a double.

Moore regrouped in time to end the inning without further damage and let the Indians' bats get back to work in the eighth.

Just as he had hoped, Johnson's team responded with four runs to avenge last year's nine-inning loss to Columbus in last year's finals.