Saturday was a sunny and hot day, but there was some ‘thunder’ causing trouble in the area.
The Lake Cumberland Thunder All-Star team made some noise all day-long Saturday, as the eight-year old team came away with a district championship in the District 5 Cal Ripken Tournament at the Ward Correll Sports Complex.
The Thunder, who captured the district title with a victory over Casey County, defeated another Lake Cumberland area team — the Lake Cumberland Lightning — to move-in tournament action. The game was a quick one, as the Thunder shook the Lightning in three innings by a score of 18-2.
In the 16-run victory over their league counterparts, the Thunder exploded for 18 runs on 16 hits, including ten hits for extra bases. Of the 12 Thunder batters, seven of them had at least two hits.
To begin the contest, in the top of the first inning, the Thunder scored the limit of six runs and never looked back. The biggest blast of the frame came from Barek Williams, who came up with an inside-the-park home run that allowed both Zach Travis (single) and Keaton Gumm (single) to score.
The Thunder would add another six runs to their 6-0 tally in the following frame, running out to a 12-0 advantage over the Lightning, a seven-year old squad.
Luke Atwood, Ian MayBrier, Brady Gibson, and Travis each had triples, while Gavin Stevens came up with an inside-the-park home run.
In the bottom part of the frame, the Lightning struck with their only two runs of the night, which came on RBI hits from Logan Hicks (triple) and Aiden Van Hoosier (single). That would be the only damage done, as the Lightning managed to only score two runs, making the score, 12-2, in favor of the Thunder.
Once again, the Thunder exploded for six scores in the third frame, running out to a 18-2 lead over the Lightning, which would also be the final tally in this one.
THUNDER 6 6 6 X X X - 18 16 0
LIGHTNING 0 2 0 X X X - 2 4 5
2B: Gumm (THUNDER)
3B: MayBrier 2, Gibson 2, Travis, Williams (THUNDER); Hicks (LIGHTNING)
HR: Stevens, Gumm (THUNDER)
RBI: Gumm, Stevens, Travis, Cooper, MayBrier, Atwood, Purcell (THUNDER); Hicks, Van Hoosier (LIGHTNING)
