Coral Springs Christian’s Comeback Effort Not Enough Against Palm Beach Central

In what turned out to be a game that lived up to the hype, the Palm Beach Central Broncos beat the Coral Springs Christian Crusaders 5-4 on Wednesday night on day three of the HSBN Preseason Challenge.

The win all but guarantees that Palm Beach County will come out of the tournament victorious for the first time.

For the Broncos, senior pitcher John Padich set the tone early in the game, throwing four strong innings. He struck out 11 batters on the night while allowing only one hit and one walk, and having 1-2-3 innings in both the first and third. Padich struck out the side to start the game, and once that happened, he shook off the nerves and just hit his spots.

“For the first preseason game, I was kind of nervous,” Padich said. “Once I started going, I started to calm down and got a big adrenaline rush just like I like it.”

Palm Beach Central’s offense seemed to feed off of the confidence Padich had in his pitching early on as they put up five runs in the first two innings. In each of the first two innings, they got their leadoff man on and had productive at-bats, something that Manager Scott Benedict said was the key for them on the offensive side of the ball.

“I was really happy with our hitters,” Benedict said. “They way they went up there and were aggressive but at the same time they worked the count. They had productive at-bats when we got guys in scoring position. They executed the hit-and-run, which was good to see.”

The Broncos had a key hit and run to start the game. After leadoff man Gage Morey drew a walk to start the game, shortstop Danny Hernandez hit a single up the middle where the hit-and-run was applied, putting runners at the corners early on. That allowed third baseman Ian Hagenmiller to drive in Morey on a sacrifice fly for the first run of the game. After loading the bases up later in the inning, right fielder Ariel Diaz worked the count and drew a walk driving in another run.

The bats picked up right where they left off in the second. The leadoff man got on again when designated hitter Jorge Alfonso drew a walk. Singles by Morey and Hernandez set up a bases-loaded situation for Hagenmiller, who singled in a run. Second baseman Jameel Edney drove in a run on a sac fly on the next at-bat, and later in the inning, Hagenmiller scored on a throwing error to take a 5-0 lead through two.

Overall, Benedict said the two preseason games “were a good experience” for his team as it continues to prepare for the start of the regular season.

“It was definitely a good experience for us,” Benedict said. “We went up against good competition, played in very competitive games and learned a lot about ourselves. We had a lot of guys who got opportunities to play in game situations against quality opponents.”

After a rough first two innings for Crusaders starting pitcher Touki Toussaint, the bullpen took over and pitched shutout ball the rest of the way. Relief pitchers Colin Taylor and Eric Hepple combined to pitch four and a third innings of shut out baseball, allowing only two hits combined while striking out four and walking one.

Catcher Benito Santiago lead the Crusaders on offense, going 2-for-4 with an RBI and two singles. Coral Springs Christian staged a rally in the final two innings, but it fell short in the top of the seventh when the team got caught in a strike-him-out, throw-him-out situation that turned out to be the rally killer.

Palm Beach Central starts a stretch of three games in four days Monday in the Santaluces Slam against Atlantic. Coral Springs Christian starts its regular season on Monday as well when it kicks off the Adidas Diamond Bash against LaSalle.

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