MANSFIELD — The Mansfield World Series trophy is staying in town.
The Richland County Merchants beat Ashland’s Whitetail Palletts 19-17 in the championship game of the nine-team event to defend their MWS title on a steamy Saturday afternoon at Cyclops Circle.
The Merchants scored five runs in the bottom of the fourth to take a comfortable 13-6 advantage and led 16-8 after five before Whitetail scored seven runs in the top of the sixth to make it 16-15. The Merchants answered with three in the bottom of the sixth, highlighted by Lexington graduate and former Boston Red Sox farmhand Zach Sterry’s two-run home run to right.
“We hit the ball all day. I can’t single out just one guy or just one game,” Richland County Merchants manager Larry Abrams said. “(Whitetail) is a good team. They are competitive and they play hard. It’s always a great game when we play them.”
Whitetail scored twice in the top of the seventh and was threatening to tie the game when RCM’s Matt Brown, a former Madison standout, made a nifty defensive play to end the game. Brown fielded Brock Bowling’s hard ground ball and tossed to second for the force out to end the game.
“We dug ourselves a hole early, but we kept battling,” Whitetail manager Travis Plank said. “I’m always happy when we fight back like that.
“We played well, but we came up a little short.”
The teams met in the winner’s bracket finals with RCM handing Whitetail its first loss. Whitetail took care of Nelly’s in the loser’s bracket final to set up the rematch.
“The level of talent of the teams we had is the best we’ve had since I’ve been doing this,” tournament organizer Josh Cunningham said. “I took it over in 2014 and it has getting better every year.
“There were a lot of Mansfield teams when I first took over, but we’ve been expanding it every year. I want to continue to grow the tournament and get it back to what it once was.”
