By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
LOS FRESNOS — Brownsville Veterans Memorial keeps finding ways to win.
On this night, Brownsville Veterans got its bats going early and often and used that offensive production to defeat Los Fresnos 13-3 in six innings in District 32-6A baseball action Tuesday.
“We came out strong tonight,” Brownsville Veterans coach Joey Benavides said. “Against Harlingen High our bats were off, it was an off day for us. We worked really hard and strategized our practices to work on hitting situations, and it really paid off.”
The Chargers (12-0-2, 6-0) got started quickly, loading the bases twice and getting a run on an infield error and a two-run, opposite-field single through the defense of Santiago Moody to give Brownsville Veterans a 3-0 lead in the first inning.
The Falcons (10-6, 3-3) got even during the second inning. After a walk to start the inning, Nick Montemayor delivered a run-scoring double. After a batter reached on an error, Miguel Gonzalez hit a deep two-run triple to center to tie the game at 3.
But that’s all Los Fresnos got against Chargers’ starter Luis Acosta. The senior pitched five innings, gave up three runs on four hits, walked four and struck out six.
“Luis started a little slow,” Benavides said. “But he’s our senior pitcher. He’s a battler, and he did really well.”
The Chargers regained the lead one inning later. Daniel Garza delivered a sacrifice fly to give Brownsville Veterans a 4-3 advantage.
The Chargers added to their lead during the fourth inning, putting three runs across the plate. Fred Villarreal had a RBI single and David Anaya knocked in two more with a single to left to give Brownsville Veterans a 7-3 lead.
Brownsville Veterans wasn’t done, adding five runs during the fifth inning, including a sacrifice fly by Anaya, an RBI single by Jorge Montelongo and a two-run double by Noel Solis to take a 12-3 lead.
“(Brownsville Veterans) came out and swung the bats well, my hats off to them,” Los Fresnos coach Rene Morales said. “We made a couple of good pitches, but they hit the ball well, that’s baseball. They hit good pitches, you can’t do anything about it.”
The Chargers roughed up Falcons starter Nate Reyna. The sophomore went five innings and gave up 12 runs on 12 hits, walked seven and struck out three.
“Pitching wise, we were good for a little bit and then we were bad,” Morales said. “We walked too many guys tonight.”
The Chargers added their final run on a passed ball in the sixth inning to take a 13-3 lead.
After the offense struggled against Harlingen High, the Chargers sought to fix things in practice. It seemed to work against the Falcons as Brownsville Veterans banged out 14 hits, walked seven times and only struck out three times.
“We’ve been leaving a lot of batters on base,” Benavides said. “So we worked on some situations to bring them in. Hitting situations with two strikes, putting the ball in play. Tonight we didn’t look at as many pitches and we took advantage of that, so I think we did well.”
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.