Faith Baptist thumps Lewisville to claim Wheels title

Faith Baptist (Fla.) won the 2014 Wheels Invitational baseball tournament on a tie-breaker after the event’s final day was rained out.

No tie-breakers were needed Saturday as the Eagles pounded Lewisville 10-0 in five innings to again claim the tournament’s 2015 championship.

“Obviously a lot better time this year than getting it by default from a rain delay,” said Faith Baptist skipper Gene Reynolds. “After Thursday night, kind of refocused today and offensively, really locked in.”

Reynolds was referring to the Eagles’ rain-shortened 4-2 loss to Rock Hill on Thursday, only their third of the season in 34 games. It did the trick because Faith Baptist – a private school based near Tampa with a roster fully comprised of Caribbean players – scored 25 runs in two games Saturday, including a 20-15 win over Northwestern in the day’s first semifinal.

“Kind of a football score with Northwestern and then the bats kept coming,” said Reynolds.

Lewisville coach Billy Keels wasn’t down after his team’s loss in the final. Quite the opposite in fact.

“I don’t think anybody expected the Lewisville Lions to play for the championship so I’m proud of the team for at least making it to the championship game,” he said.

That the Lions were in the tournament’s title game was a big achievement after they overcame Rock Hill in extra innings in the semifinals. Trey Keels threw eight very good innings in his first start of the season for the Lions, who got two runs in the top of the eighth and held off a Rock Hill charge in the bottom half of the frame to win 3-2.

“The difference in that game was we executed a squeeze bunt and scored a run, and they tried a squeeze bunt and the guy bunted it foul,” said Billy Keels.

But Faith Baptist wasn’t messing around in the championship game, and the Eagles’ depth paid dividends against a stretched Lewisville roster. Lefty starter Luis Acuña allowed just two hits and struck out seven Lewisville batters.

“We were thinking we were gonna see Rock Hill and were kind of looking forward to that,” said Reynolds. “But (Lewisville) is a team that if you let them hang around they come up and steal it. So we wanted to focus on getting to them early and deflating them a little bit.”

After a scoreless first inning and a half, the Eagles broke the game open in the bottom of the second with seven runs on seven hits. They hit four doubles in the frame off Lewisville starter Andrew Culp, who didn’t survive the inning.

After Raudy Martinez walked, Ashton Pratt launched a double to the warning track to score the first run. Another walk was followed by another RBI double as the Eagles began to trade places at second base. Chavez Young, Luis Esteban and Yeison Gomez all hit doubles in a row, Gomez’s bringing in the run that made it 7-0 and prompting Lewisville to change pitchers.

“We watched them play earlier and we knew we would have our hands full,” said Keels.

After that, Lewisville’s coach emptied his bench.

“We’ve got a lot of kids that work hard every day in practice and they deserve to get a chance to shine,” Keels said.

Faith Baptist, whose lighthearted players danced in the dugout in between innings, ended the game early with three more runs in the bottom of the fifth. Two walks and a hit batter loaded the bases and Gomez barreled a double into the outfield to clinch the trophy for the Eagles.

His team might have finished second on Saturday, but it’s Keels’ hope that the tournament jump-starts the Lions’ season. They were ranked No. 3 in preseason 1A baseball polls, but have been up and down with early region losses to McBee and Lamar hurting especially. Lewisville faces both of those teams this week as it bids to get back into contention for a region championship and home playoff games.

“We’ve been struggling a little bit and our mindset was maybe starting to doubt ourselves a little bit,” said Keels. “I think after this week we’re gonna realize that we’ve got a lot of potential to be great, instead of just good.”

This story was originally published April 4, 2015 at 8:01 PM with the headline "Faith Baptist thumps Lewisville to claim Wheels title."