Bombers 8-Under Silver wins State Championship
It took an extra inning Sunday afternoon, but Bombers Silver held on to beat the Wichita Wolfpack 12-11 in the championship game of the 8-under Hap Dumont State Tournament, which featured 24 teams from around the state. With the win, the team went 6-0 in the tourney and capped off an incredible 42-1 season.
The Bombers opened up pool play Friday with a 12-2 run rule over the Wichita Reds and then won the pool with a 17-4 run rule over the Augusta Bullets. The win gave them the number one seed in the Championship bracket.
Saturday’s first round as well as quarterfinals were both run-rules as the Bombers beat the Wichita Falcons 15-6 and Topeka Thunder 15-7 to move into the final four Sunday morning. Starting strong the Bombers put up 10 runs in the first two innings versus the Wichita Stars and cruised to 14-5 run-rule which earned them a trip for the title against the Wichita Wolfpack. The championship game was a tremendous back and forth game that featured both teams building leads but never putting the other away. Down 5-2 in the top of the 3rd inning, Max Heilman started things off with a single and then Koehn Ribordy, Daxton Minton, Trey Milsap, Jaxon Wondra and Ian Premer followed with hits to score five straight to take 7-5 lead. The wolfpack tied it up 7-7 in the bottom of the 3rd inning before a hit by Jacob Hall and an over the fence homerun by Karter Brown took the lead back 9-7 in the 4th. The Bombers increased their lead in the top of the 5th to 11-7 with Max Heilman and Koehn Ribordy scoring runs, but the Wolfpack came clawing back to tie it 11-11 in the bottom half of the inning. After a scoreless 6th inning, the Bombers scored a run in the 7th with two outs on a Minton double and Milsap single up the middle to take a 12-11 lead. In the bottom of the 7th the wolfpack lead off runner got on but would get no farther than 2nd base as a pop up to Premer at 1st base, a great snag of a hard hit grounder up the middle by Hayden Kelly for a put out at first, and then a line-drive put out by Minton at shortstop sealed the victory.
Bombers 8-under Grey –
The Bombers 8-under Grey also finished up their season by competing in the Hap Dumont State tournament. The young Bombers started off pool play action by losing to the eventual state runner-up Wichita Wolfpack 7-0, but bounced back to defeat the Wichita Dirtdawgs 18-4. The win put the team into the championship bracket in which they were defeated by final four participate Wichita Stars 14-4. Bombers Grey made up of a lot of first year competitive baseball players, ended the year very strong and had a 17-15 overall record.
Bombers 9-under –
The Bombers 9U participated in the Hap Dumont State Tournament in Anthony this past weekend. Pool play action started on Friday with a 13-4 loss to the Ark City Bulldogs and unfortunately, didn’t make it into the championship bracket after losing a 9-2 decision to the Hays Larks. In the consolation bracket the Bombers spotted the Pratt Bombers 11 runs in the first inning, but came roaring back to take a 16-14 lead before falling 24-16 in a 2½ hour marathon game. Bombers 9U finishes up a strong season at 25-20-1. A majority of the games throughout the season were against 10-under teams.