The Queens Grant Stallions baseball team bounced back with an important away conference game win against the Raptors from Mountain Island Charter with a 15-2 blowout scoring 14 runs in the final three innings.
On Tuesday, the Raptors beat the Stallions at home 8-3 in what some might consider an upset win. However, baseball is one of those games when tomorrow is a new day and you can start fresh. This is exactly what happened on Friday night on the road.
After the Stallions jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning, the game became a pitching duel between the starters. Leo Hoffer went 6 scoreless innings while giving up just 1 hit, 2 walks, and accumulated 7 strikeouts.
With the score just 1-0, in the fifth inning, the Stallions scored 4 runs on three key hits to take a 4-0 lead. Then they opened the game scoring 5 more runs in the sixth on 4 big hits. Then they blew the game wide open scoring 6 runs in the top half of the seventh to take a commanding 15-0 advantage over their conference competitor.
After their disappointing loss on Tuesday at home, this victory felt good going into the weekend and on the return trip home.
Prior to the game head coach Dan Kerr expressed some concern about Friday’s contest, however, believed his team would respond. “This is an important conference game early in the season for us, believe we have to show we can beat this team convincingly after Tuesday’s disappointment,” said coach Kerr. The team certainly bounced back and appear to have regained some of their swaggers as they move into the fourth week of the season.
The Stallions are now 6-3 overall, and 5-2 in the PAC 7 Conference. They will play a non-conference game on Wednesday, March 27th against Butler High School a large 4A program. However, the Bulldogs are struggling early this season with a 3-5 overall record, and 3-3 in their conference coming off a 13-3 loss to Myers Park. The Bulldogs will play their rival on Tuesday night at Independence in an important conference game. This could work to the Stallions advantage as the Bulldogs will be using their best starter against the Patriots.
Nick Kuebler had a big night going 3-5 with 5 RBI’s. Jacob Beard reached base all 4 times, and scored 3 runs, freshman Alwin Duran continued with his hot start, he went 2-4 increasing his batting average to .501 on the season.
