Featured photo by Bill Battle, Washington Missourian
Former Minden star Brody Bower and former Glenbrook standout Easton Sanders helped the Bossier Phillies open defense of their American Legion Baseball Mid-South Regional title with a 21-8, five-inning victory over the Mississippi state champion Pontotoc Red Sox Wednesday in Washington, Mo.
Bossier, the Louisiana state champion, faces host team Washington in the winners’ bracket semifinals of the eight-team double-elimination tournament Thursday. The game will be played approximately 30 minutes after an elimination game between Tennessee champion Columbia and Moberly. Washington defeated Kansas champion Pittsburg 7-5 in the first round.
Bower, a 2024 Minden graduate who played as a freshman at BPCC last season, got the start on the mound. He scattered seven hits and struck out six in 4 2/3 innings,
Sanders, who will soon be a freshman player at Louisiana Tech, went 1-for-2 with an RBI and walked twice.
The Phillies trailed 2-0 after the first half-inning, but Pontotoc’s lead didn’t last long.
Bossier put eight on the board in the bottom half of the frame.
“We did not care at all,” Bossier’s Cole Snell told the Washington Missourian of falling behind. “We knew our hitting team was good enough to put 10 on them in one inning. It didn’t matter who the pitcher was. We have good hitters. That didn’t faze us one bit.”
Snell, a rising senior at Benton, picked up where he left off in the state tournament. He went 4-for-5 with a home run, double and four RBI.
His two-run home run came with two outs in the bottom of the first and gave Bossier the 8-2 lead.
The Phillies had 17 hits. Former Natchitoches Central standout Dillon Braxton went 3-for-4 with a triple.
Former Benton standout Griffin Sibley went 2-for-2 with a triple and three RBI.
Former Benton star Jackson Jones went 2-for-3 with a double and four RBI.
Former Parkway star Abel Thetford went 2-for-3 with a double and three RBI.
Northwestern State sophomore Hudson Brignac, a former Benton standout, went 2-for-4 with an RBI.
Former Natchitoches Central star Brock Laird had one hit and one RBI.