TOMBALL, Texas – The Texas Drillers showed everyone paying attention to the PG WWBA South Qualifier championship game how one lone single can take a team a very long way. On Monday afternoon, that single – along with another stellar showing by its pitching staff and some timely gifts from the opposing staff – sent the Drillers all the way to Jupiter, Fla.
The Houston-based Texas Drillers combined the one hit with seven walks from a pair of Houston Banditos pitchers and escaped with a 4-1 win in the PG WWBA South Qualifier championship game played here at the Premier Baseball of Texas facility.
The title earned the Drillers a paid invitation to the prestigious PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla., Oct. 22-26. This will be the organization’s first appearance in Jupiter at an event considered the most heavily scouted amateur baseball tournament in the world.
The No. 2-seeded Drillers ended their tournament run with a 6-0-0 record, and denied the No. 4 Banditos (5-1-0) their fifth straight PG WWBA South Qualifier championship. Both teams will be Jupiter in just over three weeks.
Former big-leaguer Tim Belk built this Drillers’ roster around his son, Brandt Belk, a 2016 outfielder and right-hander from Houston who has committed to Rice. The basic group has played together since they were 7 years old and were together on the team that won the 2013 15u PG BCS Finals national championship.
“This has really been a unique group of boys … and this everything that they’ve been looking forward to for their entire lives,” Belk said. “When they got to high school and we started playing Perfect Game events, (the PG WWBA World Championship) was the event that those kids wanted to play in. … This is huge, and they’re looking forward to it.”
The title tilt was scoreless through the first three innings, but that changed in a hurry when the Banditos’ Robert Bullard led off the top of the fourth with a solo home run that sailed over the right field fence; it was Bullard’s second home run of the tournament.
The lead was short-lived. The Drillers tallied four runs in the bottom of the frame on the strength of a lone single and five walks, one intentional. Christian Long led the inning off with a single and eventually scored when Justin Collins walked with the bases loaded. Dillon Delgadillo also drove in a run with a bases loaded walk and Bryan Taylor pushed one across with a fielder’s choice groundout; a fourth run scored on a Banditos’ fielding error.
A pair of Drillers’ 2016 right-handers – Jesse Cravy, an Angelina College commit from Lufkin, Texas, and Quincy McAfee, a Pepperdine commit from Houston – combined on a four-hitter, with Cravy allowing a run on two hits and five walks in four innings pitched; McAfee allowed two hits and struck out two in three innings.
McAfee, a primary shortstop, was 9-for-17 (.529) at the plate, with nine singles, six stolen bases, two RBI and seven runs scored. Those totals, combined with his work from the mound in the championship game earned him the event’s Most Valuable Player award.
Banditos’ 2016 left-hander Lael Lockhart, Jr. and 2016 righty Kragen Kechely combined on the one-hitter; Lockhart, Jr., a University of Houston recruit, allowed the four runs (three earned) on one hit while walking six after throwing three hitless, shutout innings to start the game. Kechely, a Dallas Baptist commit, struck out two and walked one.
Both of these teams’ pitching staffs sparkled in their runs to the championship game. Banditos head coach Ray DeLeon used seven pitchers over 32 innings in the first five games, and they combined to allow three earned runs (0.66 ERA) on 12 hits with 44 strikeouts and 10 walks.
The Drillers’ Belk went with six pitchers to work 31 innings, and they allowed just one earned run (0.23 ERA) on 10 hits with 40 strikeouts and five walks. At tournament’s end, the Drillers had outscored their six opponents by a combined 39-2, the Banditos their six foes by 38-8.
“Our team is predicated on pitching and defense and always has been; we’re not going to go out there and pound the ball with everybody,” Belk said. “We’re going to play the best defense and we’re going to pitch, and we’re just as good as anybody else. It’s a lot easier on our pitchers knowing that they don’t have to go out there and strike everybody out, and they can throw their pitches knowing that the defense is going to do its job.”
The tournament’s final four set up just as scripted, with the top four seeds filling the four slots: The No. 4 Banditos went at it with the No. 1 South Texas Sliders Mayer (4-1-0) from San Antonio, while the No. 2 Drillers faced the No. 3 Tomball Tornadoes (4-1-0) out of Tomball.
The Banditos and Sliders Mayer were involved in a scoreless tie through four innings before the Banditos scored a single run in the fifth and three in each of the sixth and seventh innings. Texas commit Ryan Reynolds slugged a two-run home run as part of the three-run seventh, and finished 2-for-4 with three RBI and two runs scored; Conner Capel, another Texas commit, was 2-for-3 with two runs.
2017 left-hander Richard Gilbert from San Antonio, yet another Longhorns’ recruit, allowed an earned run on one hit in 6 1/3 innings of work, striking out seven and walking three; 2017 right-hander Drew Minter, a University of Houston commit from League City, struck out one of the two batters he faced in relief. Jaxon Williams singled with two-out in the fourth inning to record the Sliders’ only hit. Based on that performance, Gilbert was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Pitcher.
Thee Drillers made short work of the Tornadoes – much as they had done in their previous four games at the tournament – scoring four runs in each of the first two innings en route to a 10-1, five inning victory. Delgadillo, a 2016 right-hander from Corpus Christi, shutout the Tornadoes through four innings – which ran the Drillers’ pitching staff’s scoreless inning streak to 30 – before surrendering an earned run in the top of the fifth. He finished with a five-inning three-hitter, striking out seven and walking one.
mDelgadillo was also one of four Drillers who had two hits as part of their 10-hit attack, and he drove in a pair of runs. Mitchell Caskey, Chris Boothe and McAfee also hit safely twice; Caskey tripled and drove in three runs and Boothe doubled and drove in a pair; Cravy singled and drove in two.
And now it’s off to Jupiter, where both the Drillers and Banditos plan to give the rest of the world a little taste of high-flying yet down-and-dirty Texas baseball.
“No matter where we go, we’ve always represented well, and Perfect Game has seen that,” Belk said. “The most unbelievable thing about this team is we don’t go anywhere with more than 11 guys … and it’s being able to play every day and get in your groove and things like that. These kids are looking so forward to representing themselves (in Jupiter).”
2015 WWBA South Qualifier runner-up: Houston Banditos
2015 WWBA South Qualifier MVP: Quincy McAfee
