Brandywine’s Shevin Yazel throws a ball to first against Pleasant Prairie Monday afternoon. Yazel drove in four runs in Brandywine’s victory. (Daily Star photo/AMELIO RODRIGUEZ)

By AMELIO RODRIGUEZ

Niles Daily Star

The 11-year-old Ohio Valley Regional tournament pool play concluded Monday morning with the host team Brandywine facing one of the favorites, Southeastern Lexington.

The field for the single elimination portion of the tournament was already set, the only thing left to determine was who would be playing whom.

Tie-breaker rules state that if records are tied, it goes to runs allowed first.

So heading into the final pool play game Brandywine was the seventh seed, but that could have changed based on the outcome of the game. Either way, Brandywine had made the single elimination round, it just didn’t know what its seed would be.

A win or loss without giving up more than 11 runs, would mean that Brandywine would stay the seventh seed and have to play Eastern Kentucky again on Monday.

Or with a loss by more than 11 runs it would drop to the eighth seed and have to play the ninth seed for the final spot in the bracket immediately after its pool play game was completed.

The winner got to face the No. 1 seed Northern Indiana.

Brandywine ran into a buzz saw in Southeastern Lexington and fell behind early 4-0.

Lexington continued to put the ball in play on its way to a 12-0 victory in four innings.

With the loss, Brandywine got the eighth seed and had to face No. 3 seed, which was Pleasant Prairie, Wis, in the “play-in” game.

The host team handed the Wisconsin state champions an exit from the tournament 10-5.

Brandywine was able to hold Wisconsin in the top of the first inning.

In the bottom half starting pitcher Toby Fox helped his own cause with a two-out single to center that drove in Jacob Ruelle, who had walked and advanced to second, giving the home team the early 1-0 lead.

In the second inning, Wisconsin threatened to push some runs across the plate as it had runners on second and third with two outs.

But Brandywine was able to once again shut Pleasant Prairie down and keep it off the scoreboard.

In the bottom half of the inning Brandywine was able to get two of its first three batters on base and into scoring position. With two outs, Shevin Yazel singled and drove in both runners pushing Brandywine’s lead to 3-0 after two innings of play.

The home team had good pitching from Fox and good defense to once again keep the visiting team from Wisconsin off the scoreboard.

In the home team’s half of the inning, Ruelle and Fox would each reach base, by an error and double respectively, followed by a walk to Austin Hurt.

With bases loaded, no outs and a three-run lead, the home team was looking to pile up some more runs and extend their lead.

After a couple of errors by the visiting team and a couple of RBI singles by Scott Miller and Yazel, the inning ended with the home team leading by the count of 7-0.

In the fourth inning, the visiting team would finally get into the scoring column with a couple of runs and were finally able to shut down the home team and trailed 7-2 after four innings of play.

After a scoreless top half of the fifth, the home team would once again get runners in scoring position and manage to push three more across the plate, including another RBI single by Yazel, to take a 10-2 lead into the sixth and final inning.

The visitors weren’t going away quietly as they managed to plate three runs before Brandywine finally recorded the last out and won the game 10-5.

The visitors from Wisconsin finished the weekend with a 1-3 record and are eliminated, while Brandywine improves to 2-2 and advances to play Northern Indiana today at noon.

That game would have been Monday night, but league rules state that a team cannot play three games in one day, so it will be pushed back until today.