Daniel Boone Little League National coach Craig Brumfield knew that his team's opponent on Saturday would be good. He just didn't expect they would be 16-0 good.
In the second game of pool play in the Midwest regional tournament, the Columbia-based team lost 16-0 to the Iowa state champions from Urbandale, a suburb of Des Moines.
Seven fielding errors contributed to the loss. Connor Brumfield, Andrew Woodridge and Eric Kuse each had a hit for the Daniel Boone Little League. Those were the only hits off of Iowa pitcher Trae Cropp. Cropp struck out nine of the 17 batters he faced Saturday.
“The disappointing thing is that the kids were loose, we had a good warm-up and the attitude was right,” Brumfield said by phone from Indianapolis Sunday. “We just had the off-game that you don’t want to have.”
Little League Baseball’s 10-run “mercy” rule ended the game after four innings.
The Daniel Boone Little League will have two more games in pool play. It plays the Minnesota state champions, from Minnetonka, Monday evening and the South Dakota state champion, from Rapid City, Wednesday afternoon. Brumfield says that all the team’s goals are intact heading into those games.
“We came down here to play four games, and if we win our next two, we’ll be in the semi-finals,” Brumfield said. “After the game I said to the team ‘Let’s flush this game right now’ and we broke the huddle with ‘Flush it!’ The kids really liked that.”
The top four teams in the standings after pool play advance to the single-elimination tournament semi-finals Thursday. The Midwest regional tournament championship game will be televised on ESPN Saturday afternoon.