Hartsville team wins Dixie Youth World Series crown

When Hartsville Northern fell behind 3-0 in the first inning of the championship game of the Dixie Youth World Series Majors Division on Thursday morning, there was no nervousness in the home team’s dugout.

After scoring nearly 17 runs per game in its first five games of the World Series, South Carolina coach Rodney Morris knew a three-run deficit was no cause for alarm.

His team responded with seven runs in the bottom half of the inning and another seven in the second en route to a 15-3 win over Louisiana at the Lexington Sports Complex.

Hartsville Northern finished the World Series outscoring its opponents 98-7 in six games and hitting 30 home runs over the course of the tournament. Both are Dixie Youth World Series records.

“I told them when they came in the dugout that three runs will not win this game, don’t worry about that,” Morris said. “Just stay focused on what we do and let’s do what we do, and that is we score runs. We do that very well.”

After Owen Taylor allowed three runs in the first inning, one of which was earned, he and Jenkins McCullum combined to shut out Louisiana the rest of the way.

The two also led the way at the plate, each going 3-for-3. McCullum homered and drove in two runs while Taylor hit a three-run homer and doubled in addition to a single.

McCullum was named the tournament’s batting champ after hitting .684 with five home runs and 10 RBIs.

The victory is the team’s second Dixie Youth Baseball title as the group won the AAA World Series in 2013.

“When you throw fastballs, we hit home runs. When you throw curve balls, we get base hits,” McCullum said. “It feels good, because we won this back in 2013 and this was just a repeat of it.”

Hartsville Northern had four home runs in the win, including two that reached the parking lot.

Jarrett Elmore and Tyler Lawhon each hit balls that found cars parked at least 300 feet from home plate.

“I think we busted a few windshields this week, but hey, whatever takes place, I’m sure they’ve got insurance,” Morris said. “We knew these kids potentially had the power. I was a little surprised that we hit that many home runs in this tournament, because the pitching I knew would be pretty good.”

‘O’ Zone World Series

South Carolina (Jefferson) came up short of winning the championship, falling to Florida 3-2 in the decisive game Thursday night.

South Carolina entered Thursday needing to defeat Florida twice and got off to a strong start, earning a 10-3 win to open the day. In the final game, Florida jumped out to a 3-0 lead and made it stand, holding off South Carolina, which outhit Florida 9-2, but could not take advantage of its opportunities.

Rontavious Benjamin and Andrew Oliver finished with two hits for Jefferson, with Oliver hitting a home run. Anthony Ansolno earned the win for Florida.

AAA World Series

Florida needed to defeat Alabama twice to win the title and thanks to some strong hitting did that, defeating Alabama 14-9 and 7-6 to earn the AAA crown.

In Game 1, Florida fell behind 5-0 before rallying with 13 straight runs.

In Game 2, Andy Perez singled in the bottom of the sixth to score Carter Oglageo and give Florida the title.

This story was originally published August 13, 2015 at 12:49 PM.