The Porter Ridge Pirates who are in the middle of the pack in the Southwestern 4A baseball Conference dominated the PAC 7 1A Conference Stallions with a convincing 7-1 victory.
The Stallions recently upset the Butler Bulldogs, who are in the same conference as Porter Ridge. This was a major win for the Stallions program to defeat a much larger school. However, coach Dan Kerr’s crew did not have the same success against former Independence coach Daniel Cook’s sound defensive team, who can score runs on offense.
The Stallions defense needed to play a tight ballgame behind pitcher Bryce Gorospe and they came up short making several key errors which turned out to be costly. Gorospe deserved better support as he pitched a solid 5 inning’s, allowing 5 hits, and only 1 earned run showing his competitiveness. The Stallions were sloppy committing 6 errors, while the Pirates took advantage of every mistake.
Also, the Stallions lost surprise freshman standout, Alwin Duran, when he misplayed a flyball he may have lost in the bright sky landing on his nose instead. Duran could have possibly broken his nose and may be out of the lineup for some time.
The Stallions scored their only run in the third inning. Leo Hoffer grounded a single through the infield to start things off. However, the next batter Michael Ritch hit a hard grounder right at the shortstop who had him fielded perfectly for the easy 6-4-3 double play. Then leadoff hitter Spencer Smith smacked a double into left-center for a two-bagger. The number two hitter in the lineup Jacob Beard would drive a single in the hole between second and third for the RBI. Smith headed home and was safe at home plate, while Beard took second base. The next hitter Alwin Duran made the final out to end the threat. So after three innings, the Stallions found themselves down 2-1.
Porter Ridge picked up 2 more runs in the bottom half of the third to extend their lead to 4-1. The top of the fourth started out promising for the Stallions, but they could not capitalize on a double by Nick Kuebler into the right-center field gap, followed by Gorospe single up the middle. With runners on the corners and one out, the Stallions next batter would strikeout, and then hit a comebacker to the pitcher to end the final opportunity for the Stallions to put runs on the scoreboard.
The Stallions will travel to Bradford Preparatory for a PAC 7 Conference match-up next and is highly favored to come home with convincing victories to improve their record to 9-2 in the conference. They will play a second make up game from earlier in the season as the home team in the doubleheader.
