LaBruyere, Graham lead Capahas to win

The Plaza Tire Capahas bounced back Wednesday to stave off elimination at the 76th annual National Baseball Congress World Series in sweltering Wichita, Kan.

Brad LaBruyere pitched all nine innings and Daryl Graham went 5 for 5 as the Capahas beat the Columbia (Texas) Angels 7-3 in a losers bracket game of the 32-team event.

That came after the Capahas lost to the perennial powerhouse Seattle Studs 8-2 in Tuesday's first round.

The Capahas, who improved to 26-11, will play another elimination game Friday. The opponent and time will be determined today.

"It was good to come back with a win," said Capahas manager Jess Bolen, whose squad is making its 29th consecutive World Series appearance.

The Capahas played much of Wednesday's game in 105-degree heat and things were even hotter on the artificial infield surface at Lawrence Dumont Stadium.

It was so hot, in fact, that second baseman Graham became dehydrated late in the contest and had to be taken to a Wichita hospital for medical treatment.

"Getting five hits and running the bases, and playing on that infield, with the old AstroTurf, you can see the heat coming off the field," Bolen said. "Daryl wasn't looking too good so we took him out in the eighth inning. He had cramps all over.

"We got back to the motel and he couldn't move. They put two bags of IV in him at the hospital."

Bolen said Graham was recovering well Wednesday night but is questionable for Friday's game.

"There's record-setting heat out here. Guys playing in that stuff, it just wears you down," Bolen said.

The heat apparently didn't bother LaBruyere, who threw 117 pitches. He scattered 10 hits while striking out five and walking one.

"Bless his heart, he just pitched his butt off," said Bolen, whose club snapped a 2-2 tie with five eighth-inning runs. "To go nine innings in that heat, he just pitched a marvelous game. I can't say enough about him."

The Capahas had 11 hits, all singles, after managing just three hits in their tournament opener.

Graham was the only player with more than one hit. He drove in two runs, as did Sean Bard. Blake Gaddis scored twice.

The Capahas grabbed a 1-0 lead in the top of the fourth inning as Clint Cashen had a two-out RBI single. That scored Josh Eftink, who led off by being hit with a pitch and was sacrificed to second by Kody Campbell.

Columbia answered with two runs in the bottom of the fourth to go ahead 2-1.

The Capahas tied things in the fifth inning. Gaddis led off with a walk, was sacrificed to second by Jordan Kimball, moved to third on Graham's single and scored on Bard's ground ball.

"We kind of manufactured the first two runs with the sacrifice bunts. Those were big," Bolen said.

That's the way things stood until the eighth inning, when the Capahas broke open things with five runs on five hits.

With one out, Cashen walked, went to third on Drew Pixley's single and scored the go-ahead run on a single by Gaddis.

After Kimball was walked intentionally to load the bases in a curious move, Graham delivered the key blow, a two-RBI single that made it 5-2.

"I couldn't believe the intentional walk. They already had a double play in order and a guy who was 4 for 4 coming up," Bolen said.

Bard followed with an RBI single and Campbell's two-out RBI single completed the uprising.

The Angels made it 7-3 in the bottom of the eighth, but LaBruyere escaped a bases-loaded jam to end the inning.

LaBruyere retired the Angels in order in the ninth to finish off things.

The Capahas did not commit an error for the second straight tournament game.

"That's big, when you don't give the other team extra outs," Bolen said.