Baseball players are superstitious and that does not just happen at the major league level. The quirkiness of ballplayers happens even at the 14- year-old level. A plastic toy dog that hung on the Howe dugout fence all year, traveled with them to the state tournament in Lonview and “hung with them” even to the final pitch when the Howe boys clinched the championship.
On the field, there was anything but quirkiness as the ‘Dogs scored 68 runs and gave up only 19. For those mathematicians in the reading audience, that equates to 4.12 miles of base running by those that scored in the six games in the state tournament.
The 14U coaches were Adam Riggs, Kent Akins and James Duffee and Head Coach Riggs says that being state champions hasn’t even sunk in even as late as Friday afternoon. He says that there were tears after the game and every day since.
“They put a lot of work in to it and the boys made it happen.” said Riggs.
The Howe boys started the tournament by bombarding Fannin County 19-0 and then easily cruising past Tri-Cities 17-2 in four inning games which saved their ace pitchers for later in the tournament.
Mason Riggs, Bryce Krantz and Dyson Dillard where the three pitchers that threw all of the innings in the tournament. Riggs and Krantz threw 12 innings each while Dillard racked up nine innings.
“Due to us getting to only play four innings in the first two games, we were able to stay with our top three pitchers for the entire tournament.” said Riggs.
Mason Riggs started game one and three of the tournament while Krantz started game two. Dillard started game four and then it was Riggs and Krantz in the semifinal and championship games.
Parker Blount caught all six games in the extreme heat and wouldn’t come out of the games.
“He wouldn’t have it any other way.” said Riggs. “I would say, ‘are you hot and tired?’ and he would say, ‘not yet, not yet.’ He just did a fantastic job. You couldn’t tell the first inning from the last inning. He was fantastic.”
As dominant as they were on the mound, Mason Riggs, Krantz and Dillard were also dominant at the plate and led the team that had a .435 team batting average in the tournament.
Another big hitter for the team was “the rookie” Zane Hughes, a 13U player that was called up to play with 14U because of his hitting ability. However, the team took a page from the Texas Rangers book and made the rookie tote a pink bag around for the entire tournament.
Head Coach Riggs said that their philosophy was see-ball-hit-ball. “A lot of teams watch that first strike and that’s the best pitch you’re going to see.” said Riggs.
“We’re a hit-and-run team and it worked out just perfect.”
The lineup order consisted of Dillard, Krantz, Riggs, Garrett Johnson, Spencer Akins, Kyler Anderson, Blount, Carson Grogan, Hughes and Nathan Duffee. Riggs hit the only homer of the tournament and was presented the game ball.
The Bulldogs beat New Boston in the third game of the tournament, 5-4 and lost the fourth game to New Diana, 5-4. “We had to turn around and play them again the next day.” said Riggs.
“We were on the field at 5:00 (pm) and our kids were out for blood. They weren’t losing to them again.”
After the 13-5 win over New Diana in the semi-final game, they had 20 minutes to rest before taking on New Boston in the state championship.
“It was 100 degrees and I thought, well, we’re here. The boys are probably used up.” said Riggs. “But they never slowed up and at midnight, we were champions.” Mason Riggs, before the championship game went to his mother Julie Riggs and asked her if she understood the importance of the next game, as if to first realize, himself, what kind of situation they had found themselves in.
Perhaps that realization got to Riggs in the first inning as New Boston quickly put a three-spot on the board in the first inning and Howe found themselves down before even getting to the plate.
“That was only the second time in the tournament that we were having to play from behind.” said Adam Riggs. “After playing three hours in the sun, I thought, well, second place will be great. But they never got down.”
As a matter of fact, they came back and scored five in the bottom of the first and never looked back and ended up with a 10-3 win in the final game.
This is the first time in six consecutive years of being in the state tournament for this particular team to finally achieve their goal of winning the state title, but in Howe, the 14U have now won the title three out of the past five years.
With football on the horizon, Riggs thinks that this may be a baseball town.
“I know it is. We’re looking at a tournament at the end of this month to play.” said Riggs. “We’ll probably stay together even though two-a-days are going on just go keep playing a little bit.”
Riggs said that the superstition was a humorous part of the season. In the beginning, it was just a plastic dog hanging on the fence for a good luck charm. “Then there was a headless Spiderman that showed up.” said Riggs. “Then somebody’s chinstrap, Mason’s Converse shoes were hanging. I don’t know what all we had going on at the end.”
Adam Riggs’ hard work in the program has been well-documented in last week’s edition, however his wife Julie also has been involved on the Howe Youth Baseball board for many years and have kept books for nine years.
The Riggs family wanted to thank the sponsors of the all-star team for allowing the kids to have such a memorable experience. They wanted to especially thank Gary Anderson for his special attention to the team.
“He’d be there at five in the morning holding batting cages for us.” said Riggs. “He’s just a phenomenal team player.”
It’s not too often that the front page reads State Champions. Howe should be proud to be represented by not only a great team, but also a great team led by upright coaches who teach respect and the importance of character and sportsmanship. What a way to ride off into the sunset of their Howe Youth Baseball careers.
