Citizens Bank  cashes in vs. Eliz. Federal

By Ivan Sanders
STAR STAFF
isanders@starhq.com

   Even with Mother Nature making quite a deposit of rain, Citizens Bank's quest of cashing in on win number 13 on the year was not going to be denied against Elizabethton Federal.
   The Bank took the 35 minute rain-delayed game by a score of 6-3 in five innings in American Little League baseball on Tuesday night at Jim Ensor field.
   "I'm proud to be the manager of such a well-organized team," said winning manager Steve Burchfield after the win. "We played a very competitive team in Federal managed by a very smart manager in Herman Price, who I have a lot of respect for."
   The game was tight early as the Bank pushed across a run in the top of the first after Hunter Peters was hit by a pitch and worked his way around the base path to score the game's first run.
   Drew Shingleton made sure Federal wasted little time to pull even as he drew a walk in the bottom of the frame and scored. Travis Tolley added a single for Federal in the frame as well.
   Peters helped jump-start Citizens in the top of the third on a single and was driven home on a triple by Herculean player Adam Colbaugh.
   After a leadoff walk by Shingleton in the bottom of the inning, Federal issued three straight walks to Tolley, Beth Fair and Dustin Turbyfill, who recorded the RBI to even the score at 2-2 after three complete.
   Bank came back in the top of the fourth with the eventual winning run after Chris Morton walked and Peters got in the mix again with a double to give Citizens a 3-2 edge it would not relinquish.
   Bank went on to add three in the top of the fifth on a walk by Colbaugh, a RBI single by Marcus Hill, a base on ball to Corey Scalf, and RBI walks to Jarread Whitehead and Anthony Cole for a 6-2 lead.
   Federal added its final run in the bottom of the fifth inning as Tolley walked and worked his way around the bases to score the game's last run.
   Hill picked up the win on the mound for Citizens Bank while Tolley was the hard-luck loser for Elizabethton Federal.
   With the win, Citizens Bank maintains the lead in the league race with a 13-2 overall record as the season quickly heads toward an end.
   Cline-Holder Electric 12
   Summers-Taylor 1
   Cline-Holder wasted little time in jumping all over Summers-Taylor in the nightcap as C-H shocked its opposition with two runs in the first inning and six in the second to pull away to the 12-1 victory at Jim Ensor Field.
   Zack Boles and Michael Bowers reached on errors and scored the first two runs of the game for C-H.
   In the top of the second inning, Kyle Wash singled and scored on a RBI single by Jonathan Nichols. Boles reached on another S-T error and was picked up on an RBI double by Nick Jenkins.
   Bowers collected Nichols with a RBI single while Kendall Wash reached on an error. Logan Andrews notched a RBI with another solid single for C-H.
   Before all was said and done, C-H had an 8-0 advantage.
   C-H added a solo run in the top of the fourth after Bowers reached base for the third time on a single and scored to push the edge to 9-0.
   Holder went on to add three more in the top of the fifth after Travis Sommers walked, Boles singled, Nichols reached on an error and Bowers cashed in on a RBI single, with all three runners ahead of Bowers touching home plate for a comfortable 12-0 C-H lead.
   Summers-Taylor managed to keep from being shut out in its final at-bat as Dakota Waters walked and danced his way around to score with a hat trick in stolen bases. Daniel Murray,
   Jeremy Street and Shane Wilkes tallied Summers-Taylor's three hits for the game.
   With the win, Cline-Holder kept the pressure on the front-running Citizens Bank club, maintaining its second-place ranking.