Every fall season, USF holds a high school baseball tournament involving 8 schools divided into two pools of four teams. After three “pool play” games, the 1^st place team in each pool play each other for the championship, while the two 2^nd place teams play for 3^rd place in the tournament.

Freedom baseball played its first tournament pool play game last Tuesday evening against Cambridge Christian High School. The Patriots played well early, scoring five runs in the 1^st inning. Highlights included Hunter Kniskern’s double and RBI singles from Kyle Lanphere and Brylan West.

Five runs proved more than enough for Patriots ace Mitchell Leroy. Leroy was on his game early, striking out 6 batters in a row in the 2^nd and 3^rd inning. Leroy would finish throwing 5 shutout innings while allowing just 1 lone hit.

After another run scored by the Patriots, Jordan O’Clair was summoned to close out the game and breezed through the 6^th inning, entering the 7^th inning needing three outs to secure the victory.

At the start of the inning, the first two batters reached for Cambridge. However, second baseman Dakota Tillia and shortstop Jeremy Carrick recorded the final two outs with back-to-back spectacular diving plays to preserve the 6-0 Freedom victory.

Freedom’s second pool play game came last Thursday evening against King High School. King cruised to a victory over the Patriots due in part to their five run 2^nd and 4^th innings.

Despite a 10-0 deficit after four innings, Freedom was not ready to throw in the towel. The team rallied for four runs in the 5^th inning capped off with Jeremy Carrick’s 3 RBI double. However, King matched Freedom with four runs in the bottom half of the 5^th and won by a final score of 14-4.

The final pool play game for the Patriots occurred this past Saturday morning against St. Pete where a Patriots victory would have cemented a 2^nd place finish in the team’s pool.

In the 1^st inning, with the Patriots down 3-0, Andrew Wise hit what looked to be an RBI infield single. However, the 1^st base umpire claimed he was out, ending Freedom’s rally.

An inning later, a similar incident occurred when Tyler Martin floated a pop up to right field. Brylan West, who was on 1^st base, was called out at 2^nd base.

After the inning ended, a frustrated Coach Baudendistel headed out to discuss the play with the umpire.

Words were exchanged between the two, until chaos ensued as Coach B was ejected from the game. This led to the ejection of Assistant Coach Phil, as well.

Coach B then proceeded to instruct his players to come off the diamond and head home, ending the game and the tournament for Freedom.