Stories from Tuesday, July 17, 2018

The defending state champion Marshall County 13-15 year-old all-stars opened up the 2018 state tournament with a 9-1 win over East Nashville at the Jonathan D. Hollingsworth Memorial Field in Lewisburg Friday night. Marshall County had three, three-run innings on offense, while Carson Cheek and Logan McKnight combined for a two-hitter on the mound. Cheek started the game and picked up the win, giving up two hits and one earned run in three innings of work, while striking out eight and walking two East Nashville batters.

Logan Courtemanche took the ball for the winner’s bracket game Saturday night versus Lebanon at the Jonathan D. Hollingsworth Memorial Field in Lewisburg and pitched the game of his life, tossing 6.2 innings of shutout baseball as Marshall County won 7-0 to advance to Sunday’s title game. Courtemanche gave up four hits, while striking out seven and walking one Lebanon batter before he reached his mandatory pitch count with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning.

It took all day and much of the night for the Marshall County all-stars to complete a back-to-back sweep of the 13-15 year-old Babe Ruth League state championships via an 8-0 win over Lebanon in the title game Sunday. The title tilt started two hours late because of rain and lightning delays and another short delay because of a lighting outage when the local sports editor (Me) accidently hit the switch in the Press Box. “They showed up early, got a little batting practice and they were real positive and upbeat the whole time,” Marshall County manager Mike Mills said. “When we hit that field it just had that feel about it. For lack of a better word, there was blood in the water and the sharks were circling.”