The Central (Brooksville) suffered a loss to The Villages High School team in 6 innings, in a wildly entertaining and intensely competitive baseball match-up on April 1.
The Buffalo earned their ninth consecutive win as they hammered 13 hits and were sensible to take benefit of multiple errors by the visiting side.
Senior catcher Cole Bullen went 3-for-3 with three RBI and drew the bases-loaded walk to end the game.
After the Bears added three runs of their own in the top of the sixth, the Buffalo ended the contest via the 10-run mercy rule with a five-spot in the bottom of the frame.
VHS (11-4 overall) rattled off their opponents with a fabulous start, bouncing to a 3-0 lead in the home half of the first, as Bullen scored on the first Central (2-14 overall) fault of the night, before an RBI single from Anthony Karoly and a run-scoring groundout from Cole Goodwin.
“We’re just getting better and better, and the team is starting to click a little more each time out,” Bullen said after the win. “We’re still focused on improving and getting better but we’re also playing with a lot more confidence now, and I think it’s starting to show.”
Centrals under-performed with a total of four combined errors in the fourth and fifth innings, respectively, which led to another three VHS runs to extend the home team’s lead to 8-0.
“It’s really important and necessary to monetize on a team having a bad night and making mistakes, because you never know when they’re going to stop happening,” Bullen said. “You start to hit situationally a little bit more, picking up on where they might be struggling, and you’ve got to score on the mistakes when they do happen.”
VHS were all guns blazing as they sent all nine hitters to the plate in the game-ending inning, collected three hits, tallied four walks and took advantage of a hit-by-pitch.
“We practiced some things yesterday we thought we’d see tonight, and it was good to see that pay off,” VHS head coach Brady Bogart said. “We need to see us putting the ball in play, putting some pressure on the other team and keeping the game close in our favor.”
Gray and Jaxon Seckman each finished with two hits apiece, coming out of the bottom two spots in the Buffalo lineup, while the trio of Caleb Heaxt (two innings, four strikeouts), James Garvey (2 IP, 3K) and Anthony Karoly (1 IP, no hits) consolidated for five innings of blowout work on the pitch.
VHS will look to keep up its winning ways in future games.
– Attributed Source, The Villages Daily Sun
