Oilers hold off Razorbacks, 9-5

SHERIDAN, Ark.-The Texarkana American Legion Razorbacks found themselves in an early hole and were unable to climb out during the opener of the Zone 4 tournament.

The Hogs held a lead for a half an inning against the El Dorado Oilers, who scored eight straight runs and handed Texarkana a 9-5 loss Friday at Oliver Williams Field.

El Dorado plays the winner of Friday's late game between Arkadelphia and host Sheridan at noon today-with the winner advancing to Sunday's final-and the Razorbacks play the loser of the Arkadelphia-Sheridan game at 2:30 p.m.

Should Texarkana win that game, it would play another elimination game at 5 p.m. against the loser of the noon game for a spot in Sunday's final. The two teams left playing Sunday also advance to next week's Arkansas state tournament at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark.

The Oilers managed 13 hits in seven innings, scored three in the third and fifth innings and two in the fourth to pull away from the Razorbacks.

Texarkana stranded 12 baserunner son in seven innings, including the bases loaded in the second inning and at least on in every inning. The Hogs had nine hits but struck out four times in the last two innings combined.

"We did a lot of little things wrong; we never really had any catastrophic event happen," Razorback manager Carlton Bailey said. "When you constantly make small mistakes, they're going to add up, and we had our hits doubled by them until the last inning-you can' twin ball games doing those type of things."

Leighton Turbeville led off the game with a soft liner into right field for the Oilers, and with two outs, a fielding errors allowed Turbeville to score easily from second to give El Dorado a 1-0 lead.

The Razorbacks stranded a runner at third in the bottom of the first, but the bottom half of the Hog lineup managed four hits in five at-bats in the second inning.

Austin Nix bounced an infield hit to the shortstop to start the Texarkana rally, and Adam Quinn beat out a bunt single. Parker Twisdale's grounder to left plated Nix, and Quinn scored from third as a return throw from the catcher wasn't handled by Griffith cleanly.

The Oilers were able to limit the damage and strand the bases loaded to end the inning.

El Dorado batted around in the third, scoring three to take a 4-2 lead. Turbeville, Robbie Roberson, Jacob Bashears and Charles Hoof each had no-out singles, Bashears and Hoof driving in runs. Bryce Ware added a bases-loaded walk for the final run of the frame.

Bashears and Cade Shibler had RBI hits sandwiched around Hoof's double to deep left-center in the fourth to extend the Oilers' advantage to 6-2.

Williams walked on four pitches in the bottom of the fourth, was wild-pitched to second and scored for the Hogs on a throwing error.

Turbeville had a sac fly in the top of the fifth, and an error on Bashears' single made it 9-3.

Cameron Braley, after a pair of walks to start the seventh inning for Texarkana, delivered a 2-out single to center field, scoring the last two runs for the Razorbacks.

"We had plenty of opportunities to score a lot of runs," Bailey said. "But we were pressing or not having good approaches. I tell guys all the time, 'don't call balls and strikes at the plate; that's not your job.' We had a lot of guys watching pitches and way too many strikeouts."

Reece Griffith picked up the win for the Oilers, throwing 96 pitches over five innings. He fanned four, walked four and gave up three runs-one earned-on seven hits.

Keegan Rodgers shouldered the loss for the Hogs, lasting 4 2-3 innings and tossing 98 pitches. He struck out six, walked three and was charged with nine runs-seven earned-on 12 hits.

Cody Adcock pitched 1 2-3 innings of 1-hit relief, and Braden Larey worked a 1-2-3 inning for Texarkana.

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Reece Griffith, Garrett Jeans (6), Leighton Turbeville (7) and Bryce Ware. Keegan Rodgers, Cody Adock (5), Braden Larey (7) and Wren Williams. WP-Griffith. LP-Rodgers.

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