Weekend recap: State tournament

West Raleigh played seven games, outscored the opponents 110-10, and won the Cal Ripken Eastern North Carolina state title. That's really all the recap you need.

Oh, you had something more in mind? Here's a few numbers:

• 8U Blue allowed 30 hits in the seven games. Just to put that in perspective, the 8U Blue offense had 27 extra-base hits alone in those seven games. So even if you took out every West Raleigh single--all 83 (yep, 83) of them--8U Blue still had almost as many hits as the opposition.
• Take out the game against Northview Gold, when some of the bats still seemed to be slumbering, and 8U Blue pounded out at least a dozen hits in every game. That's especially impressive considering that of the seven games played in Laurinburg, the one against Northview was the only one that went the regulation six innings due to the ten-run rule.
• West Raleigh had just four scoreless offensive innings in seven games.
• In two of the games, every hitter in the lineup picked up at least one hit. For the weekend, every player who got an at-bat drove in at least three runs. 
• The .593 team batting average was the second-highest of the summer for a weekend tournament, trailing only the June 15-16 games at Thomas Brooks. 
• Defense was solid; 8U Blue had almost as many double plays turned (five) as they had errors (seven). 

Here's a look back at the goals for state tournament weekend:

Win the state tournament.

Yes. In a pretty incredible sweep, every West Raleigh team from 7U through 12U won their respective state tournament.

Hit over .600 as a team for the weekend.

Pretty close. Take out the Northview game and this one would've happened. It's not too bad to hit .593 as a team for a seven-game tournament.

Maintain the solid defense. 8U Blue will probably have to make tougher plays in Laurinburg than they made this weekend. With a possible seven games, a goal of 10 errors or fewer seems reasonable.

Got it (just seven errors). The shortened games had something to do with it, but so did some very stellar play in the infield and the outfield.

No more than six scoreless innings in the potential seven games.

This might be the best testament to the productivity of the West Raleigh order up and down the lineup. No matter who led off, they almost always seemed to be starting a scoring frenzy...there were just four scoreless offensive frames in the seven games.

At least 20 extra-base hits.

The 8U hitters almost reached this with doubles alone (18), but eventually pounded out 27 extra-base hits. They even added three home runs, the first three roundtrippers of the season.

Southeast Regional pool play begins on Thursday in Richmond/Varina (can we come to consensus on whether we're referring to it as Richmond or Varina?). 8U Blue will play two pool games on Thursday, two on Friday, and will beg to go to the hotel pool roughly an equal number of times in those days. If they compile one of the top two records in the pool, they advance to single elimination bracket play that begins on Saturday and extends through Sunday.

Some goals for the regionals:

• Win the Southeast Regional.
• Hit at least .600 as a team for the tournament.
• Bash at least 30 extra-base hits as a team.
• No more than ten scoreless innings in the potential seven games.
• No more than 12 errors in the potential seven games.
• Hold the opponents scoreless in at least half of the innings played.