Tournaments continue for Cannons

SPOKANE - Tournament time this past week for the West Plains Cannons proved to be a perfect place for some experimentation.

As hosts of a pod in the American Legion Wood Bat Classic the Cannons of course set sights on winning not only their bracket but playing for the title as well.

The tinkering head coach Austin Sharp drew up nearly worked as West Plains advanced to the first round of elimination play, losing to eventual tournament runner-up, the Billings Scarlets, 3-1 on July 6.

"It was an overall good tournament, they played their butts off," Sharp said of his team, which includes players from Cheney, Medical Lake, Reardan and Davenport.

To reach that spot, the Cannons topped the Glacier Twins from Whitefish, Montana, 3-2 and Pendleton, Oregon's Hodgen Distributing 10-0 on July 4. They fell to the Edmonton, Alberta Parkland Twins 10-2 before capturing top spot in the pod with a 9-1 victory over Spokane-based Crew 18U.

Billings is regularly one of the top American Legion programs in the state and were meeting the Cannons for the first time.

West Plains got singles from Griffin Marshall and A.J. Michaud and a Wood single scored Marshall with two outs in the fifth.

"We couldn't string together hits," Sharp said. Technically they just didn't have any opportunities to do damage in the first place as West Plains was limited to just five hits - all singles.

West Plains opened with the victory over the Glacier Twins, a team they will face this week at the Whitefish Tournament.

They won it with a run in the bottom of the sixth that broke a 2-2 tie as Coleman Randles scored the deciding run.

The Cannons broke a scoreless tie with a four-run fourth against Hodgeson and added a five-run seventh for an exclamation point.

Three West Plains pitchers, Taylor Oliver, Luke, Dicky and Randles combined for a two-hit shutout.

The Cannons managed just seven hits, no one with multiples. Oliver and Brayden Martin each had extra base hits, Oliver, a double and Martin a triple. Jay Bell, Tate Nelson, Oliver and Randles each had a pair of RBIs.

Parkland blew open a close 4-2 game in their favor with a six-run sixth. West Plains was limited to just three hits with starting pitcher Tate Nelson accounting for two of those.

West Plains borrowed from Parkland's script in the concluding game of pod play, erupting for six runs in the sixth to win a time-limited contest and advance to elimination play.

Knowing their road to the next round passed through the Crew and not Parkland, Sharp chose to do some experimentation with pitching. He calls in "bull penning" where pitchers are provided short stints.

"You have a lot of pitching available for later in the tournament," Sharp explained.

Jamal Chabot, Jay Bell and Martin each had two hits for the Cannons while Tate Hueschkel pitched a complete game four-hitter with three strikeouts.

In assessing things so far following yet another tournament, "We've played in four tournaments," Sharp said. "We've been in the championship twice the semi-finals once in the quarterfinals once. We've been doing pretty good."

The Cannons (26-10) concluded league play with games at Pullman (in Colfax) on July 9 before embarking on a trip to the Whitefish Tournament, July 11 through 14.

District play with a berth at state on the line, begins July 18 when West Plains hosts a bracket in Medical Lake with semi-finals also at Holliday Field, July 20. The finals will be at Avista Stadium, Sunday, July 21.