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Tournaments  | Story  | 6/8/2017

Clayton unhittable for Noles

Steven Walters     
Photo: Perfect Game

EMERSON, Ga. – Tyler Clayton of the Duluth Noles no-hit the Sox Baseball Club to advance his team to the next round in the 15u Perfect Game-East Cobb Invitational at LakePoint on Thursday morning.

“I was just throwing strikes and letting my defense behind me work,” Clayton said.

Clayton went six no-hit innings, surrendering two walks, while striking out nine. He said that the key to his success was pitching ahead of hitters with his fastball, which allowed him to go anywhere from there. He kept hitters off balance all morning, mixing a 78-82 mph fastball with a 65-67 mph curveball. Noles head coach Karl Garcia offered these words about Clayton’s no-hitter.

“Phenomenal, getting his first pitch over for strikes, and then he can work. His fastball tails so much, he throws a lot of strikes, getting ahead of the guys and from the beginning all the way to the end [Clayton] did a great job.”

Austin Bunn started for the Sox, the home team in the game. Bunn sat 80-82 mph with his fastball, and was aided in the first with a strike-em-out, throw-em-out double play by his catcher Andrew Baldwin to end the inning. He would pitch in-and-out of trouble all morning en route to giving up five earned runs over four innings.

Each team scored more than 20 runs in pool play and followed similar paths to playoff berths.

The No. 7 seed Sox Baseball Club rolled over teams in their pool, clicking on all cylinders to outscore opponents 26-6. They played a deciding pool play game against the East Cobb Astros 15u, run-ruling them 8-0 in five innings. Noah Sweatman was on top of his game in that outing, allowing three hits and one walk, while striking out two. Thomas Collins turned in a 2-for-3 performance at the plate, driving in three runs.

The Noles came in as the No. 10 seed after they went 3-0 in pool E, scoring 22 runs while allowing 11. They were tied with a 2-0 record with the Columbus Ohio Cobras heading into a head-to-head matchup that would decide the pool winner. The Noles would win the game 5-3 and were bolstered by a terrific start by Christian Davis, who allowed just one unearned run and three hits and no walks, striking out six. Offensively, Jordan West and Jordan Walker led the charge, going 2-for-3 with an RBI and 2-for-3 with two RBIs respectively.

“The top of our order with Caleb Ketchup and those guys, they see a lot of pitches, they’re able to get on base and they’ve got speed to go with it, so we can do other things,” Garcia said. “We don’t have to get three, four hits at a time. We can hit-and-run, we can bunt, we can steal, so it makes it a little bit easier for us with speed.”

Both matched up in what was set to be an offense-heavy game, but the playoff game turned out to be a one-sided affair, as the Noles broke out early and piled on from there. Traffic on the bases was a theme for the Noles, who had runners in scoring position in each inning from the second to the sixth.

“Aggressive, we were very aggressive,” Garcia said. “We had a really good pitcher obviously going, but our game is putting pressure on the other team, and that’s the way we played.”

The Noles scored first via an RBI triple by Jordan Walker in the top of the third. Adding to the scoring was Landon Powell, who singled home a run in the fourth, starting a five-run inning that would pad their lead and provide Clayton with enough run support. Powell would finish the game 2-for-2 with a run scored and an RBI. Ketchup also added to the attack, going 2-for-2 with an RBI, a walk and a run scored.

“I just wanted to see a lot of pitches, just so my team, when they got up there, would know what he has and see what he’s throwing,” Ketchup said. “He threw me a couple off-speed pitches, so I tried to sit back and wait on those and hopefully help my team see them as well and did pretty well on those.”

Defensively, the Noles were flawless, committing no errors behind Clayton. Ketchup made a key defensive play at shortstop in the fifth inning, when he went to the back hand and showed quick hands to throw out the runner by an eyelash, maintaining the no-hitter.

“It was actually pretty easy,” Ketchup said about playing behind Clayton. “He was dealing up there, so it made our job easy in the field. He had 10 or so strikeouts, so I didn’t really have to do anything, but I knew the ball should be coming to me, because they would catch up to it, and when he did, I just had to get rid of it cause it was a tough play.”

The Noles will play at 2:45 p.m. at LakePoint against the No. 15 seeded-Diamond Boys Showcase, who shutout the No. 2 seeded-Home Plate Chili Dogs 15u Thompson, 3-0. Ketchup offered this for his teammates as they move forward in the playoffs.

“I just want them to stay consistent,” Ketchup said. “I mean we’ve been doing it the whole tournament, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Hitting’s been good, defense’s been good, so we if we just keep playing the way we’ve been playing, we’re going to make it far.”
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