After their second place finish at South Carolina’s Super NIT, Mayhem Bad Boys traveled this past weekend to Georgia’s baseball Mecca East Cobb for the Triple Crown Fall State Championship. Bad Boys drew two Carolina teams in pool play, Carolina Stars and Upstate Drive. Mayhem split 1-1 beating Carolina Stars 4-1 which started out as a tough pitching duel against Mayhem’s lefty Christian Davis and Stars’ lefty who held the Bad Boys hitless for three innings. After a pitching change by the Stars, Bad Boys took advantage of some timely hits and solid relief effort by Cole Smith to hold off the Stars for the 4-1 win.
In game two of pool play, Bad Boys took on a final four team from the Super NIT Upstate Drive. Chandler Ball and Tate Marks went toe to toe with Upstate who eventually won on a game winning hit down the line off Marks. It was a back and forth game with great pitching and defensive plays by both with Mayhem on the losing end of an 8-7 final.
Entering Sunday’s bracket play with the fourth seed of the eleven team field, Bad Boys took on SBA Scorpions. Once again, Bad Boys pitching kept them in the game with Chandler Ball on the hill pitching three great innings and leaving the game with the 2-1 lead. Tate Marks came in giving up one run with the gamed tied going into the sixth at 2-2. Marks led off the bottom half of the sixth with a walk and eventually came around to score the winning run thanks to a hit by Nicolas Watson-Garcia sending Bad Boys to the Semi-Finals with a 3-2 win.
The semi-final game against home town favorite, East Cobb Braves, would certainly be a test. Things started to come together and once again, pitching played a big role against the solid hitting EC Braves. Bad Boys starter Christian Davis shut down the Braves to deal a four inning complete game shutout, but this time Davis was backed by hot bats and a couple of game changing double plays to win 13-0.
They moved on to the Championship game in back to back tournaments, this time facing the North Georgia Renegades. Renegades were one of the tournament favorites and one of the state’s top teams from this past spring. Bad Boys kept the bats rolling taking an early 4-0 lead in the top half of the first but the Renegades scored three of their own in the second half of the inning with Bad Boys up 4-3. During the second inning things opened up with Bad Boys knocking out Renegade’s Starter going up 8-4. Bad Boys starter Cole Smith, kept the Renegades in-check through the bottom of the third with an 8-4 lead. Renegades then scored a couple in the bottom half of the fourth giving way to Marks on the hill. Bad Boys finished up in a big way with hits by Ricky Dawson, Chandler Ball, Nicolas Watson-Garcia and Jaden Latimore extending the lead to 13-4.
Compiling a total of 17 hits in the championship and tournament team average of 422, Bad Boys won the Triple Crown Fall State Championship by 16-6.
Mayhem Bad Boys would like to give a special thanks to the following: Team Sponsor, Phillip Quick with Southern Machine and his Mayhem program and to Bill Dallas for the use of his Dugout facility in preparation for the Super NIT and Triple Crown Tournament.
