By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
As many anticipated, the Junior Babe Ruth League has co-champions.
Machen Ford held on to take a 7-5 win over Forrest City Health Club in Thursday's final season game.
The win leaves Machen and Taylor Glass with identical 7-1 records and co-champions of the league.
During the regular season, each team defeated the other in head-to-head competition.
Cochran Auto finished second behind the two co-champions at 4-4 for the year.
Cochran downed Rotary Club 10-8 Thursday.
Taylor Glass coaches Terry Laws and Ronnie Beshears will team with Machen coaches Jim Machen and Randy Pearson to coach the 13-year-old JBR All-Star team.
The district tournament will be played in White Hall while the 13-year-old state tournament will be played at Forrest City.
Machen opened a 4-0 lead before Health Club got on the board in the top of the third inning.
The Machen pitching combination of Chance Pearson and Kellon Bowman worked once again in securing the win.
Pearson worked the first three innings before Bowman came on to finish out the game.
Health Club scored their five runs on eight hits.
Mark Machen and Bowman each scored two runs for Machen while Pearson, Blake Davis and Allen Triggs added single runs.
Health Club got single runs from Dale Boyd, Trenton Ware, Chauncey Boles, Markese Ware and Demarko Peters.
*Cochran used four pitchers in its 10-8 win over Rotary.
Rotary led 6-5 after one inning but Cochran regained the lead at 7-6 in the top of the second and then held Rotary scoreless until the bottom of the fifth, while scoring three more runs of their own to get he win.
Leonard Banks and Nathan Jefferson scored twice for Cochran while Justin Cochran, Kenny Norman, Lee Smith, Demario Peters, Brandon Davis and Torre Hunter added single runs.
J.R. McKinney scored twice for Rotary while William Burks, Brian Guyton, Justin Gadberry and D.J. Downing scored single runs.
Banks, Davis, Hunter and Peters took their turns on the mound for Cochran while Daniel Richards and McKinney combined for Rotary.
Cochran coach Wayman Cochran will coach the 15-year-old All-Star team through the postseason tournaments.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
The Forrest City/Wynne based Delta Breeze team clinched the 12-under fast-pitch league championship Monday.
Thursday, the team capped a perfect season by defeating Crowley's Ridge 8-3 in the final playing date of the year.
Delta, which finished second at last weekend's district tournament at Wynne, finished 9-0 in the Forrest City league.
The team is headed to state tournament play beginning June 25 at Bentonville. The team lost to the Marion Lady Rebels in the district finals.
Lenora Bryant scored three times to lead Delta Thursday while Murry Lace and Morgan Baldwin added two runs each. Ariana McCoy scored a single run.
The Delta team has eight players from Wynne in the line up and three players -- Dre Hall, McCoy and KiKi King -- from Forrest City.
Crowley's finishes the year at 5-4 in second place.
The team scored all three of their runs Thursday in the bottom of the third inning.
In Thursday's other 12-under game, Giffin's started fast by taking a 4-2 lead, but gave up five runs in the third inning to Food Giant which led to an 11-7 loss.
Food Giant finishes the year at 4-5 in the league.
Food Giant got runs from Robin Steward, Tamara Mays, Jessika Johnson, Laquita Harris, Mishanna Morgan, Kristina Fort and Courtney Barton.Shatara Jordan, Deonmonique Glasper, Nakia Mason, Cassie Holloway, Makayla Metcalf and Nikki Derrick each scored runs for Giffins.
The 10-under girls slow pitch league plays tonight.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
Bonanza nailed down the 16-under fast-pitch league title Thursday by nailing down a 6-3 win over Clay Funeral Home .
Bonanza finishes the year at 9-1 to claim the outright league championship.
Bonanza's only season blemish was a 8-6 loss to Clay on June 7.
Pizza Inn downed Times-Herald 10-4 Thursday to finish second in the league at 8-2. Both Pizza Inn losses came against Bonanza and both were one-run losses.
In the final game of the night, the Wynne-based Dixie Chix team was awarded a forfeit win over Dr. St. John to finish the year at 5-5.
Bonanza plated three runs in the top of the first inning but a determined Clay team scored single runs in the bottom of the first and in the bottom of the second to cut Bonanza's lead to 3-2.
A third inning run put Bonanza in front 4-2 before the team put the game away with two runs in the fourth.
Pitcher Stacey Gracey closed out the game by striking out the Clay side in the bottom of the fourth after Clay scored its final run.
Amber Hart led Bonanza with two runs while Leigh Anna Taylor, Hannah McMahand, Megan Best and Gracey added single runs.
Clay got single runs from Jasmine Scott, Ikeshia Chism and Akira Brown.
Pizza Inn scored five times in the top of the second inning which helped the team to their season-ending win over Times-Herald.
Sequoria Grady and Jazzalyn Rodgers scored two runs each while Chari Agnew, Shantal Driver, Shari Rogers and Ashley Boswell helped with single runs.
Pizza Inn qualified for the upcoming state tournament, June
25-27, at Benton by virtue of their finish at the district tournament
last weekend at Wynne.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
Kerby's and Gym 2000 kept pace in the adult men's softball league Thursday.
The two teams are locked in a first-place tie at 7-1 for the year.
Kerby's rolled to a big 17-4 win over A&M Connection Thursday while Gym had to hold off Laws Contracting 10-5.
Gym 2000 led 4-3 after one inning and 7-3 after the second inning. Laws added a single run in the third to cut Gym's lead to 7-3 but fell behind 9-3 when Gym plated two runs in the top of the fourth.
Kerby's got run production from each person in the lineup in the team's one-sided win over A&M.
Kerby's led 12-0 before A&M was able to plate their first run of the game.
The two teams won their first five games before Gym defeated Kerby's and then fell to Middle Busters.
The Middle Busters kept pace with the two co-leaders with a huge 26-6 win over the Head Hunters Thursday.
The victory gives Middle Busters a 6-1 league mark.
Leading 10-6, Middle Busters finished out the game by scoring 16 runs in the final inning.
In the final men's game of the night, Food Giant won its first game of the year by taking a 12-11 win over Wal-Mart.
*In the adult women's league, Chism rebounded from its first loss of the season on Monday, to hand the Lady All-Stars a 10-0 loss Thursday.
Chism leads the league with a 6-1 record with two games left to play.
Popeyes downed Wal-Mart 6-1 in the other women's game to improve to 3-4 in the league.
Forrest City will host the men's and women's district tournament,
July 15-18, at the Sports Complex.
Last week Mustang Arena hosted Forrest City elementary basketball players for a four-day camp. This week, it was the junior high boys and girls attending camp. The junior girls morning session drew 17 students.
They were LaTerrika Lucas, Ikeshia Chism, Kristin Rucker, Kelsey Ferguson, Kennesha Richardson, LaShunda Curtis, Sherika Stewart, Semiko Grady, Mary Burks, Deidra Sparks, Bianca Hawkins, MiShanna Morgan, LaChrissa Lucky and not pictured, Meagan Pipkin, Michacanna Blunt and LaQuisha Moore.
Approximately 25 students attended the afternoon junior boys session. Individual awards were given to Jim Bailey, Findley Scott Laws and Teraye Lee (3-on-3 champions Div. 1); Fred Barber, Gabriel Turner and Jackri Jackson (3-on-3 champions Div. 2);Fred Barber and Barrett Beshears (1-on-1 champions Div. 1&2); Cedric Barber and Markese Ware (1-on-1 runners-up); Teraye Lee and Cedric Barber (free throw shooting champions, Div. 1&2); Mark Machen and Fred Barber (free throw shooting runners-up, Div. 1&2);Jared Northcutt (Hustle Award) and Teraye Lee (Mustang Award).
The third annual "Ralph" charity golf tournament will be played Monday, June 21, at the Forrest City Country Club.
Tee time is 10:30 a.m. and teams can enter the four-man scramble format tournament until Sunday afternoon.
Entry fees are $100 a man.
The tournament, named in honor of the late Ralph Thompson, helps raise money to benefit the East Arkansas Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) and like-minded charities.
Johnny Thompson, son of Ralph Thompson and head football coach at East Carolina University will be on hand as well as Forrest City native Don Kessinger.
For more tournament information or to enter, contact Mallory
Parker at 870-633-3505.