Vipers show some bite in tourney

The 10U North Coast Vipers fared well in early sea­son tour­na­ment play fin­ish­ing sec­ond in the Puri­tas Early Bird Tour­na­ment and fourth in the Ohio Bombers Mid-May Clas­sic. The Vipers team is made up of play­ers from four dif­fer­ent communities.

Ben Bliss (Welling­ton), Aidan Grabowski (Avon Lake), and Alex Har­ring­ton (Avon Lake) led the Vipers at the plate at Puri­tas Early Bird Tour­na­ment. Bliss was 7 for 12 for the tour­ney with a pair of dou­bles and a triple includ­ing going 3 for 4 in the cham­pi­onship game.

The Vipers fell to the Pitts­burgh Dia­mond Dawgs in the title game, 8-7. Grabowski also went 3 for 4 in the cham­pi­onship and 7 for 10 over­all. Har­ring­ton banged out a pair of triples, a dou­ble, and a home run and went 6 for 10 in the tourney.

Vipers pitch­ing and defense were solid through­out the Puri­tas Early Bird with the pitch­ing staff com­bin­ing for two no-hitters and a one-hitter in the first three games. Vipers pitch­ers struck out 31 bat­ters in four games with Bliss account­ing for 12 Ks. The pitch­ing staff was led by Bliss, Kevin Pin­cura (Avon Lake), Michael Weber (Sheffield), Pey­ton Wil­son (New Lon­don), and Chris Jack­son (Elyria).

The Vipers fin­ished fourth of 11 teams in the Ohio Bombers Mid-May Clas­sic los­ing in the semi-final game to the North Coast Red Dev­ils (Black). Bliss, Wil­son, Grabowski, Har­ring­ton, and Gip Con­roy (North Olm­sted) were solid at the plate with each bat­ting .500 or bet­ter in the tour­ney. Wil­son col­lected a pair of dou­bles and a pair of triples in going 5 for 10 at the plate.

The Vipers swept a dou­ble header from the Ohio Elite, Sun­day in Wellington.

Bliss hit a home run in the top of the final inning to lead the Vipers to a come­back 15-14 win. Bliss’s homer brought the Vipers within one. Gip Con­roy (North Olm­sted) fol­lowed with a sin­gle and stole sec­ond. Aidan Grabowski’s (Avon Lake) sin­gle scored Con­roy and tied the game. Grabowski stole home for his sec­ond time in the game for the go-ahead run. The Vipers came back from a 12-3 deficit.

Kevin Pin­cura (Avon Lake) closed the game on the mound for the Vipers. With one out and a run­ner on first, catcher Bliss called for a pitch out and gunned down the run­ner attempt­ing to steal sec­ond. Pin­cura struck out the next bat­ter for the win.

The Vipers won the first game 26-8. On the day, Bliss was 8 for 9 with 3 dou­bles, a triple, and a home run. Jared Krukowski (Avon Lake) went 4 for 6. Grabowski was 4 for 8 with a dou­ble and Con­roy and Alex Har­ring­ton (Avon Lake) both went 3 for 6, each with a triple.

The Vipers will play in Welling­ton again this week­end in the Memo­r­ial Day Tournament.

Posted by Adam Fox on May 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.