By Spencer Spilman.
The Lehman Lobo baseball team got a win on opening night Tuesday against the Crockett Cougars, but it wasn’t a simple walk in the park.
It took late inning heroics from the Lobo bats to pull off a hard-fought comeback win.
Lobo pitcher Justin Penney fell behind the Cougar offense early in the second inning after walking home the first run of the game. “I don’t think I had my best stuff on the mound tonight, but I just tried to
Lehman High baseball player Alex Rivera is lauded after scoring the eventual game winning run in the Lobos’ opening night game against Crockett on Tuesday. (Photo by Lincoln Martinez) |
keep it close and give my team a chance to win,” Penney said. Whether or not it was his best stuff, Penney pitched five full innings and racked up six strikeouts on the night, but left the game in the fifth inning down 2-1.
Going into the bottom of the fifth, the Lehman bats finally came alive as shortstop Trace Gonzalez came to the plate and hit a towering home run over the left field wall, bringing the Lobos to a 2-2 tie. Lobo coach Toby Robinson said he thought the team was hitting the ball hard all game, but just couldn’t hit it in the right spots. “We were hitting the ball well, but we were just lining out to their guys. It was just a matter of time when we could get that timely hit that we needed,” Robinson said.
After Penney left the mound at the end of the fifth, Mark Garcia switched from playing third base and took over the mound. Penney got his six strikeouts in five innings of work, but it took Garcia just two innings to do the same. After striking out the side in the top of the sixth, EZ Jimenez was hit by a pitch and the Lobos had the lead runner on. Alex Rivera came in to pinch run and was sacrificed over to second after a perfectly placed bunt from Garcia. With a runner in scoring position, Penney wasted no time as he swung at the first pitch he saw and belted it to the left-center field wall.
An RBI double broke the tie as Rivera came across the plate to make it 3-2 Lobos. That’s all the run support Garcia would need. Garcia faced nine batters and struck out six of them, and thanks to Penney, he got his first win of the season.
This weekend the Lobos will travel to Copperas Cove for an away tournament and will not have another home game until March 11.
