It certainly wasn't the prettiest or most well-played high school baseball game of the season, but you have to remember that it's the beginning of the second week, it's still the middle of March and local teams are still trying to work out all of the kinks.
Such was the case at Boyd-Buchanan on Monday afternoon where the Bucs remained unbeaten after three games, beating District 5-A foe CSAS by 13-3 in five innings.
The Bucs scored once in the first and added three in the second before sending 14 batters to the plate in the third where they blew the game open with eight more runs.
The Patriots stayed alive with three runs in the fourth before the Buccaneers put things away with the winning run in the fifth.
"It wasn't pretty, but it's a district win and we'll take it," said Boyd-Buchanan's first-year head coach Taylor Gilley following the long, drawn-out contest.
"I thought we played with pretty good intensity and overall, we had some timely hits. We were able to jump on them early, but we need to learn how to finish. We were able to take care of business in five as it was nice to finally get that last run," he added.
Leadoff man Cade Evans, surely one of the best shortstops in the city, got the game-winning hit with two outs in the fifth. Catcher Cooper Hodge had ripped a one-out double to right-center and advanced to third on a groundout by Thomas Baker.
Hodge scored easily after Evans lined a 3-1 offering up the middle to end the game.
It wasn't the best game of the young season for the Patriots, who are now 1-4 overall and 0-1 in 5-A.
"I think I failed as a coach today as we weren't ready to play mentally or physically," said CSAS coach Rik Herrmann while his players were doing some post-game wind sprints.
"I thought we hit the ball well at times and several of our pitchers got some work, but one of the umpires told me he didn't think my guys wanted to even be here today. Some of my guys showed some heart, but we disrespected the game of baseball today and that's all on me.
"We dug ourselves a hole early and weren't able to get out, but we'll come back out tomorrow and try to get better," the slender coach said in closing.
Senior righty Brandon Willingham was the winning pitcher as he went four innings and allowed three runs on five hits. He also had five strikeouts and walked three. Bray Wilson allowed one hit as he finished with a scoreless fifth.
Junior Brett Boles was the losing pitcher for the Patriots as he was pulled with two outs in the first after allowing a run on four walks and a run-scoring double to Colby Morgan.
Lee Ringhofer came on in relief and didn't fare much better as he allowed nine runs and five hits while walking four. That third inning was the back-breaker as the Bucs put the game out of reach with those eight runs, which came on five hits, three walks and four CSAS errors.
Seth Rogers had the biggest hit of the inning when his single to right drove in two runs. Willingham had a run-scoring single as did Hodge while Thomas Baker drove in another with a sacrifice fly to left. Hodge added a second RBI with a bases-loaded walk.
The Patriots avoided a shutout by scoring three times in the fourth.
Alex Payne reached on a one-out walk before Drew Haliburton singled and Boles dropped a nice bunt to load the bases. Ringhofer and Jevon Anderson both received walks with the bases loaded for the first two runs while Linden Alford drove in the third with fielder's choice.
Parker Lee had a two-out single for the Patriots in the fifth before Wilson ended the inning with a strikeout, setting up Evans game-winning hit in the fifth.
Morgan finished the day with three hits to lead the Buccaneer attack while Evans, Rogers and Hodge all had two apiece.
Boles was the only CSAS player with two hits, both coming on bunts.
These same two teams will play again Tuesday afternoon at CSAS.
ARTS & SCIENCES 000 30 -- 3 6 5
BOYD-BUCHANAN 138 01 -- 13 11 0
Boles, Ringhofer (1), Mercedes (4), Anderson (4), Williams (5) and Lee, Boles (2); Willingham, Wilson (5) and Hodge.
(email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)