We’ve made it to the end of the summer baseball season for the Enid Plainsmen. But that’s not before the Plainsmen took care of one more order of business and took home some hardware over the weekend. The Plainsmen took home the Big Fire’s Central Plains Classic championship on Sunday at David Allen Memorial Ballpark.
Big Fire Showcases hosted last weekend’s tournament and brought in high school kids from Topeka and Wichita, Kansas along with kids from the OKC Metro. The Topeka Stogies, Wichita Padres, and Murderer’s Row (combination of kids from Mustang, Moore, and Yukon) along with the Enid Plainsmen made up the 4 team field and the teams would go through 3 days of pool play before Sunday’s semifinal and final. Each team not only had to take on very tough competition…but also some very tough weather conditions as well. The heat and humidity were very high throughout the entire tournament which added another level of difficulty to this tournament. However, it didn’t seem to bother the Plainsmen as they played very well throughout most of the weekend.
Things got off to a shaky start, however, for the Plainsmen on Thursday morning Enid played the first game of the tournament against the Topeka Stogies. Both pitching staffs were very solid and were able to keep the opposition at bay. Enid did put together a couple scoring chances in the 4th and 5th inning and did manage to break through in the 5th with a run on an RBI single by Israel Gonzales. However, that’s all the Plainsmen could muster up and the Stogies were able to take advantage of some late inning walks and mistakes to steal the first game 2-1. Leaving that game, it definitely felt like the Plainsmen let one get away from them. But there was more baseball ahead of them and they had time to rebound with game 2 of the tournament on Friday.
Friday was a night and day difference for the Plainsmen as they took on Murderer’s Row which as mentioned before is a combination of kids from Mustang, Moore, and Yukon. The Enid offense seemed to take advantage of every scoring chance they had. The Plainsmen were led by Aidan Robinson who went 3-for-3 in the game as the offense put up a 10 spot in a 10-1 beatdown of Murderer’s Row. Two days into the tournament, the Plainsmen sat at 1-1 in pool play going into Saturday.
Saturday was another tight one as Enid battled the Wichita Padres, and both pitching staffs put on a solid performance. Enid managed to jump out in front in the first 2 innings as they got back-to-back doubles by Keon Young and Cooper Jarnigan to start the game in the 1st. Keon Young would then get a 2-run double in the 2nd inning to push the Plainsmen lead to 3-0 after 2 innings of play. That was all Karter Simon would need. Simon was spectacular as he went all 7 innings for the Plainsmen allowing just 2 runs on 6 hits while striking out 6. Wichita tried to rally in the late innings as they scored their 2 runs in the 6th and 7th inning. However, Simon slammed the door in the 7th to secure the complete game and the 3-2 win for the Plainsmen. Enid finished pool play at 2-1 and were the 2 seed going into the semifinals.
As a result of pool play, the Plainsmen were matched up with Murderer’s Row in the semifinal…a team they had no trouble with in pool play. Coach Tanner Black (who was filling in for Coach Gore who was in Texas watching his son play) turned to Keon Young to be the starting pitcher and get the Plainsmen to the championship. Keon answered the call as he was absolutely fantastic on the mound. Young threw 6 shutout innings allowing just 2 hits while striking out 6. The Plainsmen offense also stepped up and gave Young more than enough support as Enid led 6-0 going into the 7th inning. Young’s pitch count was still pretty low after those 6 innings, but Coach Black turned to the bullpen in the 7th and called on Gabe Goodpasture to slam the door and punch their ticket to the championship. Goodpasture came in and despite giving up a 1-out single and walk…slammed the door on a 6-0 win to punch the Plainsmen’s ticket to the championship game.
Waiting for the Plainsmen…a surprise team as the Wichita Padres made their way to the championship game. I say they were a surprise because Wichita in pool play went 0-3 and were outscored 30-5! Their semifinal matchup was against the Topeka Stogies who beat them in pool play 14-3. However, the beauty of baseball is you just don’t know who’s going to be on at the plate or not. And on Sunday morning, the Padres bats woke up in a big way which carried them to a 10-6 win over the Stogies. Enid knew just how good this team was though as they had just played a little more than 24 hours before and played to a 3-2 score. And things were really tight throughout most of the game. Enid got off to a hot start scoring 3 in the 1st inning and 2 in the 2nd to take a 5-1 lead after 2. Wichita added 2 in the 3rd to pull the game to within 2 after 3 innings of play. The game stayed that way until the 5th inning when Enid had had enough and blew the game wide open. Wichita’s pitcher Beau Dalian appeared to run out of gas on the mound and the Padres couldn’t turn to anyone else (only had 11 kids on the team) and the Plainsmen jumped all over Dalian and put up a 6 spot in the bottom of the 5th to make the lead 11-3. Enid took advantage of 3 Padre errors and were able to put up that 6 run inning despite only having 2 hits. Wichita would score 1 run in the 6th to try to give themselves life, however, the game reached its 2-hour time limit and the game was called with 1 out in the bottom of the 6th.
Enid was led by Bennett Percival who finished the game with 2 RBIs and Gabe Goodpasture was solid on the mound as he came in in the 2nd inning to relieve Ethan Hill who just didn’t have his A stuff. The win capped off a great week of baseball at David Allen Memorial Ballpark and also closed the book on an incredible summer of baseball for the young Plainsmen. Think back to early June. Enid lost the first 2 games of the Connie Mack State Tournament to start the summer and the games weren’t all that pretty. Fast forward 5 to 6 weeks later…and the Plainsmen are taking home hardware in a tournament that had a lot of talent in the field. This team saw a lot of growth throughout the summer baseball season and Coach Gore has a lot to be excited about. The young guys coming through the Enid Plainsmen program is full of talent and will without question help make Enid a powerhouse in 6A baseball for many years to come!
