H.S. BASEBALL: USJ wins SportsPlus championship

Playing in week-long tournaments, pitching can come down to a war of attrition.

For Jackson Christian, Saturday's championship game of the SportsPlus Tournament was an 11th game in eight days. University School of Jackson wasn't far behind.

In what could be the teams' lone meeting this season, the Bruins beat the Eagles in the tournament championship 9-3 at Trinity Christian Academy.

"For us, this is a pride factor to battle through a tournament and win," USJ coach Jack Peel said. "Especially with the quality teams that were in it. Today we got to see what the young guys had."

Both teams had different routes on Saturday. The Eagles opened strong in their semifinal win over South Gibson as Wesley Wester pitched a shutout. USJ had to hold off a late comeback by South Side and allow a walk-off hit by Garrett Guymon to be the decider.

"In the first game, we got ahead early and then hit a lull," Peel said. "They came back with momentum, but Eli Brauss pitched well to get us out of it. I have been talking to them about staying in the moment."

Jackson Christian is normally known as clean defensive team, but the Eagles committed five errors. Jackson Christian coach Chuck Cooper said that was more than his team had committed all week combined.

Two of those errors came in the first inning as USJ jumped out to a 4-0 lead.

The opening run was scored on an error before consecutive RBI doubles by Guymon and Ben Brauss increased the lead to 3-0. The final run was scored on a passed ball.

Cooper gave younger players the ball on the mound, and he was proud of the way all three battled.

"Our guys are resilient, and I am proud of our pitchers," Cooper said. "They threw strikes and took command of the strike zone.

"Wester threw the complete game shutout and got ahead of every batter in the semifinal win."

Trey Rast went three innings, Nick Jackson two and Ethan Anderson pitched the final inning.

USJ put two more runs on the board in the fifth inning on an RBI single by Guymon and an RBI double by William Jones.

Jackson Christian finally got its bats going in the bottom of the inning, and an RBI double by Miles Humphreys cut USJ's lead to 6-1.

The Bruins saw this as an opportunity to get some work out of its ace, Ryan Rolison. Rolison worked them out of the jam, but the Eagles managed two more runs on an RBI groundout by Caleb Rice and Humphreys scored on an error.

"Ryan was scheduled to throw 15-20 pitches in the bullpen today, so we thought this was a good chance to get work in. We are glad that he is our guy and that he could come in," Peel said.

USJ led 6-3 after five innings. The Bruins put the game away in the sixth inning with three more runs.

Logan Carey went 4-for-4 to lead USJ and Guymon was 2-for-3.

Michael Odom, 425-9754