On April 10, 2011 the Charles County Classic Baseball Tournament was held at Laurel Springs Park in La Plata, MD. Teams from all over Maryland came to play in this tournament. The Southern Maryland Braves 11U Black went 1 for 1 earlier that day to make it into the Silver Bracket Championship game which was played against the 11u Southern Maryland Tigers. The Braves started out strong and stayed strong throughout the game with great hitting and excellent defense. One spectator was quoted in saying that ” these boys came to play ball and that’s what they’re doing ! “. It was clear that was true, with the first inning being notable for one of their strongest. Cameron Russell led off the batting order with a base hit up the middle for a single, followed by the next two batters making it on base with walks. That brought up their clean-up hitter, Christian Erdolino who came out first pitch swinging that drove one to deep center, over the heads of the Tigers outfielders and gave him a bases clearing stand up double. Those at bats put the Braves up 3-0 in the first. Erdolino did it again in the 3rd inning with another huge hit to the outfield for his second double of the game, this seemed to set the pace for the rest of the team. Some of the players getting hits throughout the night were, Nolan Wood, Hank Bowling, Brent Sherman, Nick Norris, and Antone Smith. The Braves defense, being led by a mature Scotty Cameron as pitcher was very strong by only letting a few hits on them throughout the game. There were four players that showed great sportsmanship Nicholas Jaffurs, AJ Hunt, Luke Messersmith, and Malachi Bailey. The final score was 7-3 with the Braves winning the Silver Bracket.
