By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THEY took away a three-run home run from Jude Smith because of an illegal bat but, on the next pitch, Terico Sweeting drilled the same homer to the opposite side of the field to help propel the St Augustine’s College Big Red Machine to a 12-2 win over the Queen’s College Comets.

In a rematch of last year’s Bahamas Association of Independent Secondary Schools (BAISS) junior boys’ championship game, the defending champions Big Red Machine used a five-run second inning, sparked by the controversy over the half-and-half bat, and another six-run fourth inning to secure the win over the Comets at Queen’s College on Thursday.

“We felt bad, but coach told us to keep our heads up,” Sweeting said. “They took our runs back, so he told me not to take any strikes. He told me to drive the ball and that’s what I did.”

It was anticipated that it will be a pitcher’s duel between SAC’s Kervin Scrivens and QC’s Nijai Armbrister. But Sweeting said his battery bate - Scrivens - followed the instructions to “pitch the ball” and they got the job done.

With the win, SAC improved to 3-1, while the loss dropped QC to 2-2.

“I feel we’re definitely making an improvement as the game goes on,” said SAC’s first year coach Je’Vaughn Saunders. “We’ve been working on the little errors and the little things that we didn’t do right in our first game (against St Andrew’s Hurricanes at SAC) and we’re making great strides.”

Saunders, a former multiple standout for the Big Red Machine, said it’s always a good feeling when St Augustine’s College can get a win like they did against their arch- rivals from Queen’s College.

But QC’s coach Garry Markham said his Comets literally beat themselves.

“We blew it in the second and fourth innings,” Markham said. “I don’t know what happened after the bat incident. I think we all just stopped playing. I went to find the rules and when I came back, all of a sudden, we were down 3-4 runs. I didn’t have no idea that we had started.

“When you do have an illegal bat situation like what happened with SAC, you get on with it. We protested, but that’s how it is. That’s why we have rules. So I’m a believer of the rules. When the umpire says it’s so, I have to go with the ruling. I didn’t agree when my runner was called out at the plate, but I had to go along with it.”

As for his team’s performance, Markham said he expected a little more production from Armbrister, but the players behind him didn’t do all they could to keep the game close.

“SAC looked strong, well organised, but they are not the same team as last year when we met them in the final,” he said. “Hopefully we can meet them again and the outcome will be different from today.”

Holding onto a slim 3-2 lead in the top of the second, Smith cracked a shot to right field to plate Perez Burrows and Patrick Hepburn on a three-run homer. But Markham protested the half-and-half bat, designed for men’s fast pitch, that Smith used. After a delay, plate umpire Michael Hanna called him, nullifying the homer.

Burrows and Hepburn were sent back to third and second respectively when play resumed and on the first pitch, Sweeting came up with a homer to left field to score the two runners to extend their lead to 6-2.

Then in the fourth, the Big Red Machine batted around the clock just as they did in the second, highlighted by a RBI single from Scrivens, a RBI ground out by Tyler Munroe, a three-run homer from Hepburn and a RBI single from Smith to extend their lead to 12-2.

Queen’s College made another attempt to score after only coming up with two in the first as Armbrister led off with a single. But with two out, he was left stranded on third and Damal Sands on first on his single before Scrivens got Swanson Gibson to ground out for the final out to end the game.

Armbrister and Triston Hanna produced the first two runs for the Comets on an error and a bases loaded hit by pitch in the first inning to take a 2-1 lead.

The Big Red Machine got the first run of the game in the top of the inning when Burrows walked and eventually came home on a two-out error that put Donovan Butler on first.