TAMPA - The District 6 junior baseball tournament will continue without the Yellow Jackets.
That was the ruling from Little League headquarters in Williamsport, Pa., on Thursday as the team had at least three players declared ineligible.
The Yellow Jackets were undefeated and scheduled to play Tampa Bay on Tuesday in the finals of Field A, needing one win to eliminate Tampa Bay and move on to the championship. That's when district administrators went through the team's records and found that some players failed to show three documents verifying their residency.
The Little League adopted the rule this year.
"It came up this year that before any team could move beyond the district stage, they had to verify residency," District 6 Administrator Martin Stewart said. "Some district administrations did it beforehand, but we opted to check it before the last four games."
Tampa Bay was awarded two 7-0 forfeits and will face host Palma Ceia at 7 tonight in the championship. One win will send Palma Ceia to sectionals; Tampa Bay must win two in a row.
"That's why we chose the last four games," Stewart said. "Those two teams beat basically everybody else."
Stewart said the Yellow Jackets could have gone on because the team had at least eight eligible players.
"Going through the documents, some of the names don't match up on all of the documents," he said. "Most of it was okay, but they said if they can't have the whole team they don't want to go on."
Citrus Park held on to beat Tampa Bay 10-7 in minor baseball action Thursday. Citrus Park built a 9-2 lead in the fourth as Kyle Flanagan had a run-scoring double and Jose Santana walked with the bases loaded.
Tampa Bay charged back with four runs in the fifth. Matt Jensen started the rally with a double and came home on Ryan Coulter's single. Back-to-back singles from Michael Demo and Jacob Lopez got Tampa Bay within three, but that was as close as it got.
Major Bloom went 2-for-4 with two runs and Jordan Debonis went 2-for-2 with two walks for Citrus Park, which advances to the finals of Field A to meet undefeated West Tampa. Citrus Park lost to Tampa Bay 9-3 in the first game of the tournament for both teams and has had to win three games in the loser's bracket to reach this point.
Steven Watts had a double and a run for Tampa Bay, which was eliminated.
In Field B, Bayshore will await the winner of the West Tampa-Citrus Park for the District 6 title after defeating host Palma Ceia 10-3 Thursday. Bayshore batted around in the third and fourth, scoring nine. In the fourth Max Rowe and Erik Hughes had back-to-back singles and came around on Spencer Matthews' triple. Reid Burt struck out five and allowed five hits in five innings while going 3-for-4.
For Palma Ceia, Tyler Linabury had two hits, and Josh Jenkins' triple along with singles by Nick Ramos and Tanner Anderson accounted for all three runs, which came in the third inning.
