2014 X-Tinct Repeats in Northwest Arkansas

Northwest Arkansas MSBL

X-Tinct 10, Browns 0

Contributed by Stephen Boudreaux, NW Arkansas president

The 2014 Northwest Arkansas MSBL season started off rather innocuously with what looked to be a new balance of order among returning squads. Last year’s runner up, NWA White Sox started the season 0-5 and last year’s last place finishers, the Wingnuts started off 5-0. What remained constant was the returning champions, X-Tinct, who seemed to plow through the regular season like an army of rhinoceroses…or in their self-imposed case, dinosaurs. The early part of the season, hitting dominated pitching as par, but as hitters took stride, the balance swayed…the above mentioned teams (other than the X-Tinct) reversed course with the White Sox winning ten straight heading into the playoffs and the Wingnuts dropped nine straight dropping from what might have been a two-seed to a six-seed. The Orioles held the second best record in the NWAMSBL heading to the playoffs and earned the top spot in the bracket opposite the X-Tinct, but fell victim to the seven-seed Dodgers in round one.

The Browns, who suffered seven early losses had a terrific team when all showed, but they managed to escape their bracket to advance to the 2014 championship game at AA Royals’ Affiliate NWA Naturals’ Arvest Ball Park to take on the undefeated X-Tinct who advanced from a re-match of last year’s final versus the White Sox who managed to give them their best test of the season in the semi-final. The X-Tinct never let up, however, and took the 2014 title with an unscathed record and a 10-0 run-rule victory in the championship game over the Browns.

The championship game seemed a relatively close affair through the first seven innings with the X-Tinct scoring only one run in each of the third, fourth, fifth and seventh innings taking a 4-0 lead into the bottom of the eighth where they tacked on the needed six runs to close out the run-rule final. Offensive standouts for the X-Tinct: Tieler Driscoll(3-3, 2R, BB, HBP, K), Josh Vanderpool (3-5, 2RBI), Kasey Cooper (2-4, R, 2RBI, BB, 2SB), Corey Campbell (2-3, 2B, BB). Kasey Cooper gets the win on the mound as the X-Tinct held the Browns offense to two meaningless hits by Julio Cruz in the fifth and Jared Knox in the sixth, one BB, and 16 Ks through eight innings. Corey Campbell earns the voted MVP award from his teammates.