On Monday May 26th, the duPont Manual Baseball team faced off against Atherton High School at Derby City Field for the first round of the 2014 regional tournament. This was the first time Manual had played the Rebels. That being said, they had to come into the game with the utmost confidence in order to defeat a teams whose tactics are foreign to them.

The game started off with a 3 consecutive innings with no runs or base hits. This is credited to the outstanding performances by the two pitchers.

“Both of us are pretty good when were up to bat. It’s pretty unusual that neither of the teams would have a base hit until the 4th inning, but both pitchers were just throwing especially well that day,” Sam Coryell (12, #21) said.

Come the 4th inning, the pitchers appeared to be somewhat less immortal. Manual started off the inning with a double and a single but couldn’t convert either of the base hits to runs. This pattern of missed opportunities would continue until the top of the sixth inning.

“I don’t know what happened in the sixth inning, but something finally clicked for both teams,” Turahn Gordon (12, #22) said.

The sixth inning was a shootout, with both teams scoring a total of six runs. Manual bested the Rebels 4-2 and held them off for the rest of the game, thus, advancing to the second round of the regional tournament.

“It’s pretty rare to have all the runs scored in a game come in the same inning,” Jesse Smith (12, #11) said, “but I’m just glad we came out with the W.”