There were teams in the Fuzzy Johnson Baseball League with a better record and perhaps more overall talent this season than Keyway Coin Laundry, but none got hotter at the best possible time.

Floyd Davenport went 3-for-3 with a double, home run and two RBIs as Keyway rolled over Wadix Creative Solutions 17-8 in the Fuzzy Johnson League’s 9-12-year-olds’ tournament championship game Monday night at the Mission 66 baseball field.

Keyway lost three games in the regular season, then went undefeated through the tournament to bring home the title.

“They did everything we asked. They were out here on time, they showed up for practice, the parents stayed in touch with me. They made our job easy and left the coaching to us,” Keyway coach Randy Stewart said. “We put a lot into it, and it was very rewarding to see these kids get better like they did.”

Davenport was a big reason why. He batted 1.000 in 13 games this season and was the team’s MVP. The slugging catcher hit a two-run double in the first inning of Monday’s championship game and added a two-run homer over the left center field wall in the fourth inning to help put it out of reach.

Keyway took a 10-run lead into the bottom of the fourth and, despite giving up one run on a series of walks and wild pitches, secured a run-rule victory.

“He absolutely hit 1.000. He got intentionally walked one time, and walked one time. The man hit 1.000,” Stewart said. “We showed up to draft the teams blind. I had my son, and I knew Floyd Davenport because I used to coach his daddy 20 years ago and his daddy was good. So I took Floyd. He’s the best catcher in the league. That kid works. He’s outstanding.”

The championship game took a surreal turn when a protest over an ineligible player led to a long delay and tons of confusion.

The Port Gibson Stompers, last year’s champions, had beaten Wadix on Friday night to claw their way out of the losers’ bracket and into the final. Wadix’s coaches protested, however, saying that two players on the Stompers roster were older than 12 years old.

The Stompers could not immediately provide a birth certificate for the players in question and were disqualified from the tournament by league officials. The league did not require teams to submit players’ birth certificates before the season.

The Stompers coaches were given until Sunday evening — later extended to Monday — to show a birth certificate. The Stompers showed up dressed to play Monday evening, but the game between Wadix and Keyway started as scheduled at 6 p.m.

Then, in the bottom of the first inning, play was halted and a 45-minute delay ensued as league officials, umpires and coaches tried to sort things out.

Fuzzy Johnson League commissioner Justin Williams said the Stompers had a birth certificate for one of the players in question but not the other, and the initial ruling stood.

“It’s just a bad thing that happened,” Williams said. “They were supposed to provide the documentation by the deadline. They did not meet that deadline and still didn’t have the proper documentation.”

The ruling didn’t sit well with coaches and parents from the Stompers. A large group of supporters waited in vain behind the visitors’ dugout during the delay, while players sat on a nearby hillside. Fans gradually filtered out as word of the league’s ruling spread, although coaches and players stayed until the end.

“It’s real frustrating. It’s a disservice to the children,” Stompers assistant coach Ronnie Mackey said. “We’ve been playing the same players since day one, and they’re going to wait until now to do this.”