By ANDREW CRUM | THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD
Cristian Gonzalez is getting into an offensive groove for Hanna and continued that against PSJA High.
Gonzalez knocked in three runs to lead the Golden Eagles’ offense as they came back from an early deficit to take a 7-2 victory over the Bears in a non-district game Friday at Hanna. The teams play a doubleheader today at noon at PSJA High.
“I’ve just kept my confidence up and I knew it would come around,” Gonzalez said of an early season slump. “We started off slow offensively, but everyone is coming around and our defense really sparks our offense … good pitching and plays on defense and I think that gives us confidence.”
The senior first baseman went 2 for 3 hitting a deep home run to left field and added an RBI single and a sacrifice fly to give Hanna all the runs it would need.
The rest of the team followed suit and erased a 2-0 deficit by scoring seven unanswered runs in the win.
“The hits are falling (for us),” Hanna coach Jameson Wicks said. “(Cristian) went off during our last tournament, he’s been doing this all year. Hopefully he can keep it up.”
PSJA High took the early lead in the top of the first inning. A sacrifice fly by Vicente Castillo scored Ariben Gutierrez, who reached on an error, and took a 1-0 lead.
In the second inning, the Bears put another run across the plate on a fielders choice by Joel Pecina to extend the lead to 2-0. But that’s all they’d get as their bats went quiet.
“We didn’t get the timely hits,” PSJA High coach Marco Guajardo said. “The momentum changed … (pitcher) Cheke (Marroquin) wasn’t comfortable on the mound … that carried over to our sticks as well. We just didn’t come through with our bats.”
Hanna got one back in the bottom half of the second as Jacob Lozano hit a single up the middle and scored Ricardo Perez, who had got a two-out single to get the Eagles going.
One inning later, Hanna took a 3-2 edge. The Eagles tied it up at 2 with a 1-out single hit back up the middle by Gonzalez and later in the inning, Hanna loaded the bases and scored on a wild pitch.
The Eagles added to their lead with a solo home run by Gonzalez in the fifth inning to push it to 4-2.
But Hanna wasn’t done yet. The Eagles put three more runs across the plate in the sixth inning for insurance as Jay Medina and Marco Sanchez each had an RBI singles and Gonzalez added a sacrifice fly.
“It’s something we’ve been doing all year,” Wicks said of his team’s offensive output. “We have to learn to let things like that go (early deficit), we don’t want to see things like that happen, but these guys battle. We’ve had several games where we had to battle back and PSJA High is a solid team. We can’t afford to make mistakes like that especially early in the game, it could have went very differently for us if we didn’t get those clutch hits.”
The offensive output was more than enough for Hanna starter Rolando Ramirez, who went six innings, allowed two runs on one hit, walked two, struck out four and had two hit batsmen to earn the win. Lee Alonso pitched a perfect seventh inning and struck out one.
Marroquin went four innings, allowed three runs on five hits, walked three and struck out three in the loss for PSJA High.
Guajardo wasn’t too concerned with the loss, with another pair of games against Hanna today.
“That’s a good team over there,” he said. “We’re using this series to get quality at-bats. We start district on Tuesday. I’m not worried so much about the wins or losses; just getting quality at-bats, see good pitching. I know this team will jell at the right time and we’ll be at the top (of district) … I think we are where we want to be.”
Both teams were in the postseason last year and it’s helping each prepare for district, which starts next week.
“This is a good way for us going into district,” Wicks said. “In the playoffs in a three-game series, we need to be able to see what we can do … so this is an important series for us.”
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.