Balanced Attack Carries Western Past Cooper City

All season Western’s been knocking on the door of a quality victory only to be turned away one way or another.

Friday night marked what the Wildcats are hoping will be a turning point in their lackluster season as instead of knocking on the door of a big win, they blew that door off the hinges, beating longtime rival Cooper City 11-1.

The Wildcats (4-6), winners of three of their past four games, are working to turn around a 1-5 start that included close losses to district foes Cypress Bay, Flanagan, Everglades and West Broward.

“Our team came out here with a fire in our bellies because we wanted this win really bad,” senior catcher Ryan Gabriel said. “We’ve been struggling all season getting the bats going. Our defense, out pitching, everything’s been struggling recently. Today we finally got it all together and we got a great win today.”

Gabriel included himself in those who have been struggling, but Friday he tried to “stay cool and not do too much.” But much he did, smacking a two-run home run and bringing in another run with a sacrifice fly.

Gabriel’s first-inning homer had the Wildcats off to a 2-0 start. He finished 1-for-3 with a home run, two RBIs and a run.

Western produced multi-run innings in the third and fourth to put the game out of reach for the Cowboys (5-6), who managed three hits off Western starter Sean Horner and Anthony Bologna.

After Cooper City made it a 2-1 game in the top of the third when Justin Flemming knocked in Juan Teixera, the Wildcats added three runs in the bottom of the inning. Mac Hessney doubled in Tyler Fichter, and Gabriel’s sacrifice fly allowed Hessney to score. Carlos Rodriguez singled in Enzo Clemente.

Western added five runs in the fourth. Alex Villanueva, the ninth batter, led off with a single and the Wildcats batted around. An error allowed Fichter and Hessney to score, and Rodriguez belted a two-run home run that brought home Gabriel.

The Wildcats ended the game by the mercy rule in the bottom of the fifth after scratching out another run.

While the hits just kept on coming, Horner did his thing on the mound, as did Bologna, who pitched the fifth.

“I was throwing strikes and fastballs and allowing my defense to work,” Horner said. “They couldn’t hit the curve ball, so they were missing a lot on them.”

Wildcats Manager Paul Barnes said Friday’s performance was typical of what Horner has been producing.

“We couldn’t ask for more from him,” Barnes said. “Every single start he’s been there for us this year and last couple of times out we didn’t support him defensively and offensively. He’s finally getting something he deserves from the team. He can carry us a long ways hopefully.”

Barnes said his team is in a “do-or-die situation” next week as it hosts Cypress Bay on Tuesday and Flanagan on Thursday. So the Wildcats wanted to come out with a good performance Friday not only because Cooper City is a rival but because the team needs something to feed off of going into those games.

“It’s a must win because we have district games next week and we needed a win to get our confidence up,” Horner said. “Last time, we got walked off against Cypress and Flanagan, so we were right there with them, it’s just one or two plays in the field or one or two at-bats.”

Barnes said it is mission accomplished.

“I think tonight we got some momentum to build off of,” he said. “We’ve had games where we stranded a bunch of runners on base. We’ve had games where we haven’t hit at all. We had a game this week where our pitching wasn’t there. It’s been one thing after another. Hopefully now we can get everything together and pile up some wins.”

Cooper City Manager Wayne Stofsky said it was simply a matter of a lack of execution that prevented the Cowboys from winning.

“The difference in tonight’s game was they just hit the heck out of the baseball,” Stofsky said. “If you give up two home runs and I don’t know how many bases right from the start, that was the difference. It didn’t matter because we didn’t score any runs. You’re not going to win a high school baseball game scoring one run unless Nolan Ryan is pitching, and that’s not the case in high school. We tell our kids all the time: You have to do three things well to win a baseball game. You have to pitch well, you have to play good defense and you need timely hitting. We didn’t do any of the three and they did all three, and that’s why they scored those 11 runs.”

Leave a comment using your facebook account!