The Charlotte County Pre-Majors baseball team finished as the runner-up in the 2019 Dixie Pre-Majors Baseball State Tournament at Parker Park in South Hill over the weekend.

“Our team did really well,” Charlotte Manager Jeff Rapole said Tuesday, “but I’ve been coaching these young boys for three or four years, and we just faced a team the other day that was more mature, and they were very self-disciplined hitters. We made some errors, and it cost us.”

The team he was referring to was Mecklenburg County, which defeated Charlotte 13-1 on Friday evening in Charlotte’s tourney opener. The teams met again in the championship game Sunday afternoon, and Mecklenburg won that contest 10-2.

“We did make it to the championship round, but we fell a little short,” Rapole said.
In between those losses, Charlotte shined, playing twice Saturday.
“Saturday morning we eliminated Madison Heights, and then Saturday evening we eliminated Halifax by slaughter rule,” Rapole said.

Charlotte topped Madison Heights 9-5 and beat Halifax 14-0.

Highlighting individual standouts on his team, Rapole focused on his pitchers, which included Jake Simon, Johnny Ray Holman, Nate Reed, Wade Jenkins, Tya Johnson, Brenden Francisco and Jason Cooke.