HIGH POINT — Six teams arrived in High Point last week hoping to advance to the 2023 Dick’s Sporting Goods Pony League World Series in Washington, Pennsylvania. The Pony League East Zone Championship featured two teams from North Carolina along with teams from New York, New Hampshire, Ohio and Virginia. One of the North Carolina teams was High Point, the host team. The other team represented Chatham and Randolph counties from the central Piedmont. The tournament was played at the Johnson Street Sports Complex in High Point.
The Chatham-Randolph team was formed from the five teams playing in the Chatham County Pony League. The league played a 12-game regular season at Chatham Central High School in Bear Creek. Following a league tournament, a 15-player all-star team was selected to compete in the Pony League national tournament. Eastern Randolph High School varsity baseball coach Nathan Cockman led the squad.
The team was comprised of Landon Albright, Bauer Bowling, Miles Cox, Cameron Hinton, Chance Holdaway, Shane Immel, Carson Jackson, Daniel Jaimes, Gabriel Jaimes, Cade McCallum, Ryder Murphy, Davis Rhodes, Ayden Walsh, Carson Williams and Rhett Wood.
Going into the tournament, the Chatham-Randolph team knew it would need four wins to capture the East Zone title and advance to the World Series. It picked up two early wins to stay in the winners’ bracket in the double-elimination tournament, but the team’s third game was a shutout loss to eventual champion Manchester, dropping them to the loser’s bracket. Chatham-Randolph then suffered a 1-0 loss to Ohio in a nine-inning rematch.
In its first game, Chatham-Randolph started McCallum on the mound against the New York team from the Bronx. McCallum struck out nine N.Y. batters and earned the win for C-R. The game started with back-and-forth scoring through the first three innings. In the bottom of the fourth, C-R plated five runs to break open an 8-2 lead. Chatham-Randolph added four runs in the bottom of the fifth to earn a 12-2 mercy rule win. Holdaway and Albright each had three RBIs for Chatham-Randolph.
Game 2 for C-R was the only seven-inning (regulation length) for the team in the tournament. Bowling got the start for C-R against Ohio and yielded three hits and three runs over 5⅔ innings. He struck out seven, walked five and earned the win.
Chatham-Randolph was the home team and trailed Ohio going into the bottom of the second, allowing a run in the top of the inning. Chatham-Randolph scored twice and never trailed again. After going down 5-1, Ohio mounted a comeback in the sixth, scoring three runs and sitting down the C-R batters in order to trail 5-4 heading into the seventh. But Daniel Jaimes, pitching in relief, had his own three-up, three-down inning to close out the game.
Game 3 was a winners’ bracket matchup of the two undefeated teams in the tournament. The team from Manchester, New Hampshire, had already mercy-ruled Southampton-Sussex in its first game and topped host High Point 4-1 in the second game.
New Hampshire, the home team, scored one run in the first and never trailed in picking up a 10-0 mercy rule win to put C-R into the losers’ bracket.
Holdaway started for C-R, allowing six hits and seven runs in 4⅓ innings. He had six strikeouts and walked six.
Game 4 was a must-win for both C-R and Ohio. McCallum got the start for C-R and surrendered just two hits over 8⅓ innings, striking out seven with no walks. The rematch was just as close as the first game between the two teams, and the nine-inning game combined with their first meeting as the only two one-run games of the tournament.
The game was tied 0-0 in the bottom of the ninth when Ohio scored on a fielder’s choice to seal a walk-off victory and end C-R’s run.
Holdaway, a multisport athlete from Southwestern Randolph, led C-R in batting average and collected the only multi-base hit for the C-R in the tournament — a triple against New York in Game 1. Holdaway and Albright each had three RBIs in the tournament to lead the team. Bowling, Gabriel Jaimes and Immel tallied two RBIs each. McCallum, who played for Southeastern Randolph Middle last season, starred on the mound with two starts totaling 12⅓ innings and 16 strikeouts, allowing just two runs and five hits for the tournament.