A delicate balance
FRANKLIN TWP. —Southern Columbia coach Mike Myers and Vo-Tech coach Michael Beaver will be the first to tell you they aren’t pleased with how their respective teams have played to this point in the early going.
Myers got to lift his head higher as the Tigers’ lineup showed balance, striking early and often to give Gatlin Hovenstine more than enough run support as he held the Rams hitless in a 15-0 three-inning win.
Following a full-count walk to Shane Tomlinson to start the game, Hovenstine was in complete control. He worked ahead of the Rams with his fastball before getting them well out in front with his offspeed pitches.
“He’s been struggling, and pitching from behind,” Myers said. “That was why I threw him today — he could use some work and we wanted him to go and get ahead of the hitters. That was something we told him today, we wanted them to hit his pitch instead of falling behind and having to throw fastballs.
“I felt he owned the plate today. There are some things we need to work on, but I was happy for him today.”
It worked to the tune of six strikeouts. The Rams didn’t hit the ball to the outfield all afternoon, hitting three groundballs when making contact.
The offensive struggles — and 0-5 start to the year — come as a shock to Beaver. The Rams have a great deal of turnover from last spring, and he expected the team to make some strides.
“Not where I thought we would be at this point, that’s for sure. We were off-balance and not being patient today,” Beaver said. “Hitting has been our downfall. Once our hitting comes around, we should improve because we’re pretty solid defensively. We have to play better as a team, but that’s always the challenge because we get kids from all over who never played together up to this point.”
It was a much different story for the Tigers (4-2). Once they started timing Mason Haught, it was full steam ahead.
Jacob Cambria got things started with a leadoff double to deep left. Mike Zsido drove him in a line-drive single up the middle two pitches later. The Tigers scored twice more, including on an RBI double by Mike Yancoskie, before the Rams recorded an out. Even the outs were productive for Southern with Matt Masala driving Yancoskie — who advanced to third on a balk — on a sacrifice fly.
“We haven’t been staying balanced and using the whole field coming into today. We weren’t having very disciplined at-bats,” Myers said. “I’m very happy that we hit the ball all over the place today. We had good at-bats and hit the ball hard.
“At times when you see a slower pitcher, you sometimes get into bad habits. But our guys stayed back and hit the ball hard. It’s something we’ve been working on and it’s good to see.”
The Tigers did a little bit of everything in the second inning, picking up five hits and two walks. They advanced on the basepaths via two stolen bases, a balk and some wild pitches. They were also helped out by the Rams, who committed a pair of errors.
All told, they struck for seven runs in the frame, with the highlight being back-to-back two-out RBI doubles by Ryan Kerstetter and Ethan Roughton. Kerstetter, the No. 8 hitter, drove in Masala as he split the right-center gap and didn’t wait long to come around with Roughton ripping the second pitch of his at-bat down the left-field line.
Vo-Tech doesn’t have the options when it comes to pitching, having a busy slate this week. That played a role in sticking with Haught despite a mound visit during the second inning.
Regardless of the score, Beaver saw a lot of good in his outing.
“That was a freshman on the mound, and we were trying to conserve our pitchers because we have three more games this week,” Beaver said. “I thought he did a good job and threw some good strikes. That’s a fairly good sign for us.”
The Tigers finished things with a two-out rally. Masala doubled to left to score Zsido, Louden Murphy walked and pinch-hitter Josh Hergan loaded the bases on an infield error. That set the scene for Roughton, who singled to left and drove in Masala and Murphy.
For the game, the Tigers hit five doubles, had eight players record a hit, eight drive in a run and nine score for a balanced attack.
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