By HARVEY SIMPSON

Dispatch Sports Editor

MOULTRIE — Crisp County’s 14-and-under baseball team posted as many victories — 3 — as anyone in District 3 Georgia Recreation and Parks Society tournament play this past week.

Then again, the squad also had as many losses — 2— as all but the Moultrie #1 squad that handed it an 11-1 title game defeat to cap its undefeated tournament run that earned it a trip to state July 9-11.

“Overall, I thought we did really well,” said Crisp head coach Jody Brown whose team launched tourney play in a 5-3 loss to Moultrie #1 and then reeled off wins over Grady County (2-0), Bainbridge (9-0) and Moultrie #2 (11-10) before bowing to a very talented Moultrie #1 crew.

“We just happened to come up short in the finals against an opponent that two years ago won the 12-and-under state championship and has a lot of its kids playing travel ball this season.”

Crisp’s only run in the final game came on Rush Brown’s second homer of the tournament. Jordan Howard also had a round-tripper during the four-day affair that saw Preston McGinnis deliver a game-winning two-out single in Crisp’s high-scoring semifinals revenge win over Moultrie #2.

“I really think our kids viewed Wednesday’s game as their championship as they spent an awful lot of emotion in winning a see-saw duel that advanced us to the championship game,” Brown said.

“Having had to play four days in a row as the result of falling into the loser’s bracket right off the bat, I really think we were a little drained both mentally and physically in the finals where shaky defense really hurt us at times.”

After noting that his team got good pitching from Ty Turner, Drake Dozier, Landon Whitman, Howard and Brown throughout the tournament, the Crisp coach said his squad “all in all made a pretty good showing.

“On behalf of coach (Tommy) Dozier, coach (Trina) Whitman and myself, I really want to thank all our parents and fans for all their support ”