By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
INDEPENDENCE, Ore.– The Central Baseball team once again found themselves in a battle. This time against La Salle Prep on Thursday afternoon for their home opener at Central High School.
The Falcons jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead going into the bottom half of the first inning. But surely, the Panthers pieced together some quality at-bats and their defense settled in as they were able to build a 4-2 lead going into the third inning in the 5A non-league match-up.
“They did a great job at the plate early on and we had great at-bats. We stayed within ourselves and had a good approach and we had good success with it. In the middle innings. We went away from it a little bit and we tried to do a little bit more than we needed to,” said Central Head Coach Ben Kramer.
The score was unchanged entering the fourth inning, but the top half proved costly for the Panthers. La Salle Prep capitalized on three Central errors to tie the game at 4–4 heading into the bottom of the inning, shifting the momentum.
But nonetheless, Central battled.
They pitched shutout innings in the fifth and sixth to stabilize the momentum. Then, in the bottom half of the sixth inning, the Panthers were able to pull back ahead. Santi Alacron drove in two runs to help Central build a 6-4 lead going into the seventh. It felt as if momentum swung back into their favor at the right time.
But the swing in momentum was only temporary sadly for the home squad. That was because in the top half of the seventh inning, the Falcons scored three runs to retake the lead for the first time since the first inning and were able to bring that momentum to the finish line. La Salle Prep took the game 7-6 on the road.
“We played them in a tough battle last year. We were ahead early in the game and they were able to come on back. It’s something we always got to build on, no matter what. I think going into the future, we need to focus on capitalizing on these games,” said Jackson Barba. “Practice makes perfect. We just got to get after it in practice and reps. Reps. A lot of reps.”
Thursday was the third-straight game in which the Panthers lost by two runs or less. Heartbreaking defeats sure, but it’s preparing them for the gauntlet that is the Mid-Willamette Conference here in the coming days.
“Our league is super tough, so most of our games are going to be in that same realm where a couple plays defensively, a couple at-bats and that’s what is going to decide a game,” starts Kramer. It’s definitely going to help us in the long run and every single one of them has been in a situation where, whether at the plate or in the field where they need to make the play. Long term, it’s great, we’d like to come away with some wins from it. But this group here isn’t going to go away pissed off about it or sad about it. We just got to do what we always do, it’s baseball and next pitch mentality. “
J.T. Girod, who got the start on the mound on Thursday, struck out six batters in six innings for Central. Alacron, Barba and Josh Fitts each led the Panthers with two hits each. Barba had a team-high 3RBI’s in the game as the Panthers will host McNary on Tuesday night back at Central High School First pitch of that game is at 5pm.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
