Forck deals, leads Tropics to semifinals

In what was a tightly contested game, the Southeast Tropics prevailed with a 3-1 win over Connecticut in the quarterfinals of the Babe Ruth World Series.

The Tropics handed the ball to Dalton Forck who kept his team in the game by tossing a complete game allowing just one run while striking out three in the win.

“Dalton was awesome,” Tropics coach Dustin Schwartz said. “When you have a guy like Dalton who’s got that mentality of ‘give me two runs and I will take it home for you’ and he did it.”

Forck said pregame he felt pretty good as he was getting ready.

“It’s good to know you have a defense like that behind you,” Forck said. “Being a pitcher that gets DH’d for I have to put a lot of faith into my offense as well and I can easily do that with this team.”

Forck made sure to get into a rhythm on the mound to make sure the opposing hitters couldn’t get too comfortable in the box.

“I like to go fast because it keeps the hitters off balance,” Forck said. “I know as a hitter I get comfortable whenever the pitcher takes too long so I just try to avoid that.”

The scoring would start in the Tropics’ half of the first inning as catcher Trey Benthal bounced a ground ball to second base that would be bobbled and allow Kolton Payne to score.

“When you see your cleanup guy who’s your catcher, busting it down the line and a guy scores from second base on a miscue, it just sets the tone of we are going to be hard nosed this game,” Schwartz said.

Connecticut wouldn’t stay down for long however as they responded with an RBI single of their own to tie it 1-1.

Getting the start for Connecticut was Joel Barragan who did his part to keep his team in the game.

Barragan tossed five innings, allowing just two earned runs in the loss.

The Tropics were able to scratch across a pair of runs via sacrifice fly to make it 3-1 in the bottom of the fifth.

“We know that each game is going to get tougher from here on out,” Schwartz said. “You just have to find ways to produce and when the guys are buying in to what we’re doing, they’re going to find a way.”

It was clear heading into the top of the seventh that the Tropics were loose and ready to close the game out.

“It starts with good leadership,” Schwartz said. “Forck had that mentality of ‘Hey, I got it guys.’ Forck kept the pace and he really kept it going for us.”

Leading the charge on offense for the Tropics was Kolton Payne who had a two-hit day and two-runs scored.

“Kolton is great man,” Schwartz remarked. “He’s going to get the ball again some time this weekend. I don’t know when, but he’s a guy I’m going to go to. You just can’t say enough about Kolton.”

Trey Benthal also had a pair of RBIs in the win for the Tropics.

With the win over Connecticut, the Tropics advance to take on the winner of the 7:30 p.m. game between California and Washington.

The semifinal match will begin at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 19, at Capaha Field.

“We have to pitch and we have to play defense,” Schwartz said. “If we don’t get the big hit we’re going to have to manufacture runs in other ways. If we do the little things right, the big things will come.”