They weren’t even supposed to be there. Yet the Duplin County All-Stars took an opportunity given to them by a technicality and turned it into something special.
Tuesday afternoon concluded the Dixie Boys Baseball World Series tournament, held in Sterlington, La, with the host team defeating the All-Stars 3-11. The two sides previously faced off on the winners’ side of the bracket Monday morning, with Sterlington winning that game 12-2.
In the final game of the Series, the All-Stars got on base early in the first inning, with Davis Smith hitting a single on a line drive to left field on the sixth pitch he saw. The chance to build on this was short-lived, as Sterlington recorded three straight outs to keep a runner stranded on first.
Hatch Becher got the start for Duplin County, hitting a batter on his first three pitches to send Sterlington’s Cal Rollinson to first in the bottom of the first. In the next at-bat, Harper Mills hit a single off Becher to advance Rollinson to third. This set up an RBI by Rand Garvin to send Rollinson home from third and give Sterlington a 1-0 lead. Next at-bat, both Garvin and Mills decided to attempt steals, with Garvin landing on second base and Mills getting home to add another run for Louisiana. A fly out hit from Rowen Johnson sent Garvin to the plate to put Duplin down three runs before Joseph Bruscato grounded out to end the inning.
The All-Stars fought back immediately in the second inning. A single base hit by Hampton Bass on a line drive to center got Duplin back on base. During Noah Bass’s at-bat, a passed ball was fumbled by Sterlington’s catcher, allowing Hampton to move to second. An error was made in the next at-bat by Mills following a pickoff attempt on Hampton, gifting Duplin County a run as he made it home.
Both Dan Wilson and Tanner Serafini walked for the All-Stars in their at-bats, sending Konnor Sholar to the plate next. On his plate appearance, Sholar bunted the ball, forcing another error out of Mills that sent Braylen Gomez (pitch running for Wilson) and Serafini home to tie the game at 3-3. One more error would occur from Sterlington before the host team collected two outs to end the top of the inning.
Stopping the bleeding, Sterlington settled in on offense in the bottom of the second.
After a fly out from Mav Franklin, Evan Elias hit a ground ball that Duplin County’s Smith had an error on, getting Elias on base. Sterlington gained two runners on base following a single by Luke Powell, before loading the bases after Becher hit Rollinson again in his second at-bat of the day. With the bases loaded, Mills hit a fly ball to right field that was caught by Sholar, but sent Elias home and Powell to third, as the host team took the lead 4-3. Another error from Duplin sent Powell and Rollinson home to add two more runs before the inning was over.
Both offenses cooled off over the course of the next two innings, with no runs scored until the bottom of the fifth inning.
It was Sterlington who broke the scoreless drought, scoring five straight runs. Powell, Mills, Macon Williams, and Rylan Newsom contributed RBIs to build an insurmountable 11-3 lead. The game ended with the host team named World Series champions.
Despite the runner-up finish, the All-Stars ended their World Series run with a 4-2 record, defeating every team they played except Sterlington. All fell to Duplin County on their path to becoming World Series finalists. Over the course of the past week, the All-Stars were able to find ways to overcome close games, particularly against Hardee and Hattiesburg. Against Mississippi, it was a defensive showing with both sides refusing to concede until extra innings, where Duplin managed to walk the game off thanks to the game-winning bunt by Gomez that brought Sholar home. Then, when facing Hardee County down 2-3 in the bottom of the seventh, RBIs from both Smith and Marshall Rumbold brought in the game-tying and game-winning runs to carry the All-Stars to another victory. In a win-or-go-home game against Hartsville following their first loss to Sterlington, the All-Stars didn’t need extra innings. They put up 10 runs in six innings to solidify their best offensive showing of the tournament.
As the dust settled and the tournament run came to an end, reflection started to set in for the Duplin team.
“To me, it’s the experience of a lifetime.” All-Star head coach Will Rumbold said in a follow-up interview Thursday. “It was always a dream of mine as a little kid to try and go play in a World Series. That dream continued throughout my adulthood in coaching, as I had never had that opportunity. It was everything I expected, and a bit more.”
Rumbold said he loved the effort his team showed over the course of the six games the team played in the World Series. Even with the offense performing a bit slower than they expected going into the tournament, there was no quit on the Duplin County side.
“It was awesome to watch,” he said of the team mentality. “It’s kind of one of those things as a coach, you tell your players to have faith, believe, and to never give up. We saw that the first day against Florence County. We got to the fourth and fifth innings, not really hitting the ball or producing anything at the plate. I wouldn’t say every inning was three up and three down (outs). By the fifth inning, I told them, ‘look, y’all need to be selective with these pitches; we need to try to get this guy off the mound (Fisher Parker).’ I felt like once we get this guy off the mound, we could probably win this game. We were down going into the sixth, and he was still on the mound. I started to think this might be it; we might be running out of time.”
When Parker left the mound in the bottom of the sixth, he was replaced by Brantley Marlow, and then later Lawson Mouzon. That switch kick-started the offense for Duplin, who scored five unanswered runs in two innings to win the game 7-4, after being down 4-2 in the first five.
“Their relief pitchers kind of struggled a little bit,” Rumbold explained. “We ended up plating five runs, and I told the team that we had to go back out and defend. I said, ‘If you’ll just believe and just have some faith, things can happen in the right way.’ We ended up getting three outs and not allowing any more runs in the seventh to win that game 7-4.”
In the games against Sterlington, the team just wasn’t able to muster up the same success they had against everyone else they had played.
“Our pitching was kind of not where we wanted it to be,” Rumbold said. “As far as who we could have throw. Jase Woodard was not able to pitch anymore. We had pitched him both Monday and Tuesday, so he wasn’t going to be available to pitch on Wednesday. Hampton had pitched against Hartsville; we kept him under his limit to try to save him, possibly, if we did go to a game two on Wednesday (against Sterlington) for a championship.”
While the All-Stars didn’t walk away as the champs, the mood wasn’t somber when their game against Sterlington ended. It was the opposite, actually, with many of the players overall enjoying their experience in Louisiana.
“The kids said that this was an opportunity of a lifetime,” Rumbold recalled. “I could remember hearing murmurs before the state tournament that they were ready for the season to be done. As we got to the state and started playing, they said, ‘I want to be here, I love it.’ It was kind of the same thing once we got down here; the kids were excited. I heard no complaints and no gripes. Just the camaraderie and the brotherhood that was built not just between the team, but the families involved. They were very supportive.”
The team held devotions over the course of a couple of mornings between the families that traveled with the team. Before the last game against Sterlington, Rumbold called the fans within the stands onto the field to participate in the team’s prayer.
Content writer Trevon McGlone can be reached via email at [email protected]