By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
The Hanna Golden Eagles did just enough against Lopez.
Jaime Gonzalez hit a sacrifice fly during the third inning to break a tie and Johnny Balli pitched six strong innings as Hanna held on to beat Lopez 4-3 in District 32-6A baseball action Friday.
Balli pitched six innings, allowed three runs on six hits, walked two and struck out six to get the win for Hanna (11-7, 7-4). Noe Guerrero worked the seventh inning, allowed one hit and got the Lobos to ground into a game-ending double play.
“Johnny gave us a chance, he’s come a long way,” Hanna coach Eddie Garcia said. “He’s worked hard to get to this point. His confidence level wasn’t there earlier. He was a little shaky, but he’s young and he’s learning. After that he started getting stronger. He did a good job tonight.”
Lopez (9-9-2, 3-7) quickly took a lead in the first inning. With one on, Marky Ordonez hit a triple, and he scored on an errant throw to give the Lobos a 2-0 lead.
Hanna answered in the bottom half as Roy Sauceda singled and later scored on a Lopez throwing error to make it 2-1.
The Lobos extended their lead during the second inning. After AB Gonzalez reached on an error, Eusebio Castro doubled to give Lopez a 3-1 lead. But the Lobos missed out on a few other scoring opportunities.
“We made a couple of baserunning errors and we killed our own rallies, that didn’t help us,” Lopez coach Victor Martinez said. “With teams like (Hanna), you have to play perfect ball. They’re a great team, and you make errors and it’s going to be hard to beat them. Those errorscost us the game.”
The Golden Eagles weren’t done in their half of the inning. Sauceda delivered again with a two-run double to tie the game at 3.
One inning later, Lee Alonso doubled to start off and scored on a sacrifice fly by Jaime Gonzalez to give the Eagles a 4-3 lead.
Lopez pitcher Alex Olguin went six innings, allowed four runs on seven hits, walked three and struck out five. The Lobos’ bats went cold after the second inning, spoiling a good outing by Olguin.
“He had us there and gave us a chance to win,” Martinezsaid. “That’s all I ask from him every day, every outing. I ask for him to give us an opportunity to win a ballgame and he did, he did a great job.”
Garcia said his freshman pitcher made the start because Eagles pitcher Alec Buitron was scratched with back spasms.
“That’s what teams do, (there are) opportunities, somebody goes down, so somebody has to step up,” Garcia said. “(Balli) came in and did that. We beat them the first time 8-2, but the second time, everyone’s always tougher.
“Fortunately we squeaked by, it was a tough win. It could have gone either way.”
Andrew Crum covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6629 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @andrewmcrum.