Stewart Belisario, manager, said that lesson helped them defeat a competitive Rockmart team and walk away with the District 1 9A Little League baseball title.
"We've had a great rivalry with Rockmart and when they beat us in our first game in pool play we almost had to teach our team they could beat Rockmart," Belisario said. "Once we did that, it was kind of downhill from there."
The Canes learned the lesson well, winning the next five games in a row.
Belisario said the Canes emerged from pool play with a 3-1 record and facing a best-of-three series with Rockmart with the title going to the victor.
He said Cartersville won the first game in the championship series by a 7-4 margin.
The Canes jumped on Rockmart early, plating four runs in the first inning. Belisario said Preston Welchel got the first hit for the Canes, who then used small ball -- capitalizing on a mixture of walks and singles -- to score.
The Canes added two runs in the third -- keyed by a Ladarius Winburn home run shot --then added one more for the final 7-4 score.
The manager said Brant Smith, Welchel and Gage Morris shouldered the pitching load. "Brant threw a really good game for us."
Cartersville did not much room for error in the second game. They scored 3 runs in the first, with leadoff batter Juan Guerrero getting on base via an error. Welchel hit a double, Gage walked and Winburn scorched another single.
Cartersville added two runs in the third, courtesy of Crawford Taylor and J.T. Mitchell, then Noah Davis added the sixth run in the fifth inning, for the 6-5 win.
He credited Morris with playing "almost lights out baseball" while throwing 66 pitches.
"Jordan Mitchell came in and put the nail in the coffin as the two held them to just five runs," he added.
Belisario said he was proud of the team. "We basically brought the 9-year-old championship back to Cartersville."