Fayetteville wins 7A-West title

Alex Blagg held onto the baseball, and Fayetteville grabbed the 7A-West Conference title with a 10-0, mercy rule victory over Van Buren at Bulldogs Stadium on Monday. Blagg, Fayetteville's senior catcher, braced for impact as Van Buren's Landry Wilkerson barreled around third base to attempt to score from second on a single through the left side. But Bulldog left-fielder Jackson Sloan fired a strike to Blagg well ahead of Wilkerson, who lowered his head before plowing over Blagg. Wilkerson was ejected from the game following the first-inning collision, a move banned by Major League Baseball in 2014. He would have been ruled out even if Blagg had dropped the ball. He didn't. "That's the first thing I thought of whenever I hit the ground," Blagg said. "I checked to see if I had the ball." Fired up by the collision, Fayetteville (16-12, 11-2 7A-West) scored multiple runs in all but one inning of the five-inning affair. Bowed-up Bulldogs and Pointers players rushed the field after Wilkerson leveled Blagg, but the scene remained civil as umpires and coaches were able to keep the peace. Still, Blagg said the consensus feeling in the dugout was Van Buren "made it personal" with that play. Bulldogs coach Scott Gallagher sensed it, too, along with the Pointers' dejection after the ejection of one of their top players. "I don't know if it woke us up, or if it kind of sent them into a tailspin -- it maybe kind of did both," Gallagher said. "We battled in the bottom of that inning and put up a three-spot, and the wind came out of their sails a little bit." It was the final out of the top of the first inning, and Sloan, Fayetteville's leadoff batter, smacked the first pitch of the following inning for a single to open the flood gates. Blagg hit an RBI double, Barrett Banister hit an RBI single and another run scored on the first of six Pointers' errors to give the Bulldogs a 3-0 lead. That was more than enough cushion for Fayetteville ace Miller Pleimann. The junior right-hander and Wichita State verbal commit, threw his fourth one-hit shutout of the season to lower his ERA to 0.93 in conference games. He struck out five, but walked four. "He wasn't extremely sharp the first inning," Gallagher said. "He came into the dugout and said, 'I'm a little nervous, just being in a conference championship game,' but he settled in after the first inning and looked good after that." For a storied program that won its seventh state championship in 2013, winning the 7A-West Conference championship doesn't seem like a big deal. But after last year's team finished 18-15 overall and 8-6 in conference play, returning the program to the top of the conference heap was a remarkable feat. "It feels great," Blagg said. "We've been looking forward to this all season. We talked about it after last season, but we didn't really realize it until the season got here that we would be able to compete for a conference championship." It made it even more special because it came on senior day in front of a near capacity crowd. With 15 seniors, Gallagher said it's the largest class he recalls coming through in his 14 years with the program, including the past two as head coach. "At Fayetteville High School, we're trying to win conference championships every year," Gallagher said. "That's our goal at the beginning of the year ... and we still have a lot of season left in front of us." Senior Hayes Cox, who'll pitch at Van Buren at 5 p.m. today, led the offense with two triples. Banister also had two hits.

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FAYETTEVILLE WINS 7A-WEST TITLE

MIKE CAPSHAW

Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette | 5/2/2017

PHOTO CREDIT: Jason Ivester