After the Mean Machine’s first summer tournament game Thursday, June 11, Pete Kelly’s blues were out in full force.
“I’m thinking, ‘Oh, my God, are we that rusty?’” the head coach of the Cottonwood-based club baseball team said after getting no-hit, 8-0, by the Phoenix Vipers at the Desert Classic. “But the biggest thing about the boys was the bounceback. I told them how pathetic an effort it was — they knew they played [poorly], but they didn’t let it affect them and in the next game, they played ball like I knew they could.”
The turnaround paid immediate dividends, as Kelly’s son, Tyler, rebounded from the wasted complete game two-hitter on the mound against the Vipers to knock in the go-ahead run Sunday, June 14, in a 6-4 victory over the Phoenix Wild Fire for the championship of the Southwest wood bat tournament for teams 16 years old and under at Riverview Park in Mesa.
For the full story, please see the Wednesday, June 17, issue of the Cottonwood Journal Extra.
