HARLINGEN — From cold bats to solid Brownsville Lopez defense, nothing went right for the Harlingen South Hawks in their latest District 32-6A contest.
After the Hawks recorded just two hits and committed five errors, the Lobos took advantage and cruised to a 12-2 win in six innings on Tuesday night at Harlingen Field.
Aside from a seven-run top of the fifth inning that cushioned the Lobos’ lead, it was the arm of pitcher Alex Olguin that gave the Hawks trouble. Olguin picked up the win after allowing just two hits while striking out eight and tossing five scoreless innings.
“He had South off-balance tonight,” Lopez head coach Victor Martinez said. “That’s a pretty good ballclub coach (Tony) Leal has over there. We kept them off balance, which is good on our side, and we had the bats going tonight.”
While Olguin gave the Hawks fits, what made the night all the more frustrating and made it an early night were the 10 runners the Hawks stranded.
“Early on we had some guys on base to put a little pressure on Lopez, but they kind of exposed us once they had runners on base,” said South head coach Tony Leal. “Lopez is a good ballclub and we had a bad tonight, but we just have to look forward and see what happens.”
After Lopez opened up a 4-0 lead in the top of the fourth, the Hawks put together their best inning of the night in the bottom of the fourth.
After back-to-back singles from Alex De La Cruz and Jimmy Morton, starting pitcher Nick Muniz reached first on a Lopez error, allowing pinch runner Mando Martinez to score.
Morton came home on the next at-bat after a sacrifice RBI by Matt Zavala, making it a 4-2 game with only one out in the inning.
The Hawks went on to load the bases, but could not capitalize and left all the runners stranded and Lopez answered in a big way.
After a pair of RBI doubles put the Lobos back up by four, a three-run RBI-double from Marky Ordonez brought in three more runners and an errant throw to second by the Hawks during a run-down attempt opened the door for Ordonez to score.
Ordonez went 1 for 3 at the plate with three RBIs, while teammate Jesus Rodriguez was 2 for 4 at the plate to help lead the Lobos.
For the Hawks, starting pitcher Nick Muniz took the loss after giving up three runs and three hits in 3.0 innings.