D.J. BARNETT (left) AND TREY McAVOY show the championship trophy won by the Crush in Easley, S.C., recently. The Franklin County Crush travel baseball team won the NIT Championship in Easley, S.C., a couple of weeks ago and thereby qualified for the league’s World Series in the summer of 2006.

Behind great pitching from Cody Seymour, Trey McAvoy, and D.J. Barnett, the Crush was able to shut down the Spartanburg Sidewinders, the Spartanburg Swamp Bats, and the Madison County Rebels.

Seymour went 1-0 and McAvoy went 2-0. Both pitched 12 scoreless innings on Saturday and Sunday. Trey Started Game 2 and pitched four scoreless innings. With a 7-0 lead, he was removed and D.J. Barnett came in to close up the final three innings and post the final score at 8-2.

McAvoy started Game 3 on Sunday and went five innings – four scoreless and one 3-run inning in the second (All three runs were unearned). With the score at 7-3, D.J. came in and finished off the final two innings and earned a save. The final score was 11-6 and more importantly the game secured the NIT Championship. The pitchers were able to avoid trouble because defensively the team was impeccable, according to coach Mark Cohen. The defensive stars from the weekend were Connor York, Carson Moon, Seth Blalock, D.J. Barnett and Trey McAvoy.

Coach Cohen of the Jack City Giants of Buford, Georgia, called the Crush the best all-around team that he had played so far this year in the 13-and-under AA division. The coach also said that not only can they beat you with their pitching but then you have to contend with their speed and bats.

The Crush played the Jack City Giants on September 17 in a doubleheader and beat them 5-0 in the first game with D.J. Barnett pitching a complete game shutout. The Crush won the second game 7-1 with Trey McAvoy earning a complete game win.

D.J. also leads the team with an impressive .542 batting average and a .600 on-base average. Team manager Allan Seymour has done a wonderful job of getting the team ready and getting everyone on the team involved.