Despite achieving the ultimate success in the 11-12-year-old baseball division — a trip to the Little League World Series — last season, this year’s edition of Jeff/GRC hasn’t quite had the buzz that surrounded its storied predecessor.

But all that can change with one swing of the bat. Or maybe three.

That bat was carried by first baseman Hunter Holcomb on Monday, as he singled, tripled and crushed a three-run home run to lead Jeff/GRC past New Albany 14-3 in a pool-play matchup in the District V tournament at Clarksville Little League Park.

The victory moved Jeff/GRC to 2-0 and allowed it to keep pace with favored Highlander Youth Recreation, which has stolen much of Jeff’s thunder with a team that has stayed — and grown — together while winning the past two D-V titles in the younger divisions. HYR moved to 2-0 itself by easily dispatching Charlestown 13-2 following the Jeff/GRC-New Albany game.

“They’re the favorite, no question about it,” said Jeff/GRC coach Scott Fertig. “We just need to stay focused and keep playing good baseball. We’re going to take our shot (at HYR) and I can’t say whether we’ll be successful or not, but we’re on the map and that’s the best we can hope for at this point.”

Jeff/GRC’s focus, along with Holcomb, made for a nightmarish afternoon for New Albany, which had just a single hit entering the final inning before displaying a flash of its potential by putting up three runs when down to its last three outs.

Still, neither team could manage much offense over the first two innings, but Jeff/GRC hit the scoreboard first with a four-run third. The rally was keyed by singles from Jared Burke and Harrison Dale, a walk from Zach Ramirez and then the big shot — a three-run triple by Holcomb, who ended up with six RBIs.

“We had a couple bad judgments on defense and all it takes is a couple of mistakes against a good team to get you in a bad spot,” said New Albany coach Paul Moses. “We didn’t bring our ‘A’ game tonight and Jeff was the better team.”

With a stacked lineup, Moses said that the four-run hole wasn’t what worried him. But the Jeff/GRC offense was just getting started, with a three-run homer by Holcomb pushing the edge to 9-0 and chasing New Albany starter Eric Robison. If there was a silver lining for Moses, it was that four other New Albany pitchers saw action once the game appeared to be out of reach.

“I have confidence in our pitching,” he said. “We can go four, if not five, deep and none of the coaches here would hesitate to start any of them. When we got down that much, we thought we could put in some boys who haven’t pitched in the tournament to get them some experience. That sort of became the strategy.”

The hit parade continued against each New Albany hurler. Burke and Dale each drew one-out walks in the top of the sixth, bringing up Ramirez with two on. He crushed a long homer to right-center field off Brad Bottoroff, and two more Jeff runs would come around — one in the form of Holcomb, who had singled — after an RBI single by Casey Jackson and a sacrifice fly by Brad Kendle.

Meanwhile, Jeff/GRC pitcher Dalton Brown kept the door closed on New Albany, replacing Dale in the second frame and yielding just three hits and one run in 3 1/3 innings of work with five strikeouts.

New Albany finally solved the Jeff/GRC staff in its last at-bat, when Julian Johns singled to right field, advanced to second on a wild pitch and then scored on a base hit by Noah Smith. Jack Shine then scored Smith, who had moved to third, with a deep fly ball to the warning track, and then Robison blasted a solo shot to nearly the same spot as Ramirez’s bomb in the top of the frame.

For his part, Fertig doubts his team is truly 11 runs better than New Albany, but admitted the way it won is a solid way to keep nipping at HYR’s heels. And maybe capture some of that elusive buzz.

“Like I told them, that’s about as well as we can play,” Fertig said. “When you play solid defense and get good hitting, anything can happen out here. We’re thankful we’ve started with two good wins, and we’re going to just try and keep it going.”

Jeff/GRC will meet tourney host Clarksville this afternoon at 5:45.

• HYR stays perfect in pool play: While Jeff/GRC’s victory gave it a brief lead at the top of the 11-12 baseball standings, it took just a single inning for high-powered HYR to blast back to even.

Brandon Smith hit a home run, Brandon Hanna delivered two triples and star Trey Fulton went 2-for-4 in HYR’s 13-2 dismantling of Charlestown. All 13 runs came in the first inning, and HYR cruised from there.

It was plenty of support for Smith, who went the distance to pick up the victory on the mound for HYR, which will try to move to 3-0 when it meets New Albany tonight at 8.



13-14 BASEBALL

• Jeff/GRC blanks Charlestown: Mark Meyer needed 89 pitches, striking out six and walking four, to toss a complete-game shutout and lead Jeff/GRC to a 10-0 win over Charlestown.

Marcus Gray went 3-for-4 with a walk and a triple to lead the Jeff/GRC offense, which jumped out 2-0 after the first inning and tacked on four more runs in the second. Darren Taylor had a double in the loss for Charlestown.

Jeff/GRC will take a night off before returning to action against HYR on Wednesday at 5:45 p.m. Charlestown will meet Silver Creek tonight at 8.



9-10 SOFTBALL

• HYR crushes Jeff/GRC: A patient HYR offense walked to victory on Monday, drawing eight free passes and taking down Jeff/GRC 15-3.

HYR started slowly with a single run in the first inning, but added six runs in the second frame and tacked on eight in the third to provide the final margin.