JAMESVILLE — North Beaufort’s 12U all-star baseball team had to win back-to-back games Thursday evening to take home the Little Tar Heel District 7 crown. They inched closer to that goal by handling hosting Jamesville, 11-3, before running into a hot Southern Pitt team. North Beaufort ultimately lost a shootout with Southern Pitt, 16-10, to finish as runners up.

North Beaufort surrendered some early runs and entered the bottom of the third trailing, 5-1. Ryan Cornelius singled through the right side and Messiah Levy followed by laying down a well-placed bunt. Eli Huynh and Hayes Pippin came around to score on the back-to-back base hits, cutting North Beaufort’s deficit in half. Cornelius scored on a single off of Andrew Keech’s bat to make it a one-run game.

With one crack of the bat, Brian Gutierrez was able to take control of the game. He drilled a three-run homer to centerfield to give his side its first lead of the game. North Beaufort added two more runs to lead 9-4 at the halfway point of the game.

The lead didn’t last too long as North Beaufort effectively ran out of gas. Southern Pitt scored nine runs between the fourth and fifth innings. North Beaufort struggled to get runners on in the latter half of the game, which made it hard to keep up offensively.

“I’m very proud of the kids, but we just didn’t get the breaks,” coach Anthony Keech said. “They’re tough minded. They’re going to go places. It just wasn’t our day today. … The future is they move up to 13-year-olds and we go from there. Right now, we’re going to rest for a while.”

North Beaufort played a sound game both offensively and defensively earlier in the evening against Jamesville. The all stars, seeking vengeance for a loss to Jamesville earlier in the tournament, struck early and often while limiting the opposition’s baserunners.

After scoring twice in the top of the first, North Beaufort quickly erased Jamesville’s first baserunner of the game. After bobbling it for a bit, Huynh caught the ball lined at him and beat a player before he could tag up.

Jamesville’s offense struggled to put runners on base. Meanwhile, North Beaufort’s offense scored in each inning to take a 10-0 lead halfway through the fifth. The all stars would have won an inning early had they kept Jamesville off the board in the bottom half of the frame, but ended up going the full six stanzas.

North Beaufort was able to make a lot happen with two outs in its first game, but couldn’t find much of that magic in the second.

“I think the weather had something to do with it,” Keech said. “Other than that, we just got out played in the second game. … Physically, it’s not that hard (to play in the heat). Mentally, though, it’s tough on them. Especially our catcher (Gavin Rayburn). He’s one of the leaders on the team and he grew up as a man this week.”