By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
Lopez found its offense at just the right time against Harlingen South.
The Lobos, down by four runs, exploded for eight in the fifth inning to take a four-run lead, and that momentum carried them to a 11-6 victory over the Hawks in District 32-6A baseball action Friday at Lopez.
“Our view is that we never give up,” Lopez coach Victor Martinez said. “They didn’t look at the scoreboard even though we were down, they just kept playing. One run here and one run there, they starting adding up and we turned it around.”
With Harlingen South leading 6-2, Lopez sent 12 batters to the dish while plating eight runs on six hits, three walks and a pair of errors.
“We’re just trying to battle and we were trying to play inning-by-inning,” Harlingen South coach Tony Leal said. “Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. All the credit goes to their kids (Friday). We have depth problems with our pitching, so that’s going to happen. We only have three or four pitchers, but the night belongs to them.”
The highlight of the offensive explosion was four consecutive RBI-singles by Alex Olguin, Marky Ordoñez, Jesus Rodriguez and Danny Alvear. Later, Hector came through with a two-run single and AB Gonzalez drove in another by getting hit by a pitch with the bases loaded as the Lobos took a 10-6 lead.
“(Robert Mejia) is one of the best we’ve seen this year,” Martinez said. “We were trying to get his timing. We were manufacturing runs by bunting, moving runners over and getting timely hits. We started putting the ball in play and that helped us.”
In the sixth inning, Lopez added an insurance run. Alvear doubled and later scored to give the Lobos an 11-6 advantage.
Leal said his first two pitchers were freshmen and are still getting the hang of the varsity game.
“They’re learning and they do make some mistakes here and there,” he said. “But so do we as coaches, we just try to teach them. We’re not perfect ourselves as coaches, we mistakes also, so I take the blame for the loss.
“It happens, it’s the game of baseball.”
But the game was much different before the fifth inning when the momentum shifted toward Lopez.
Harlingen South got on the board quickly in the first inning. The Hawks put four runs across the plate before Lopez came to bat.
Nick Reasor singled to lead off the first and Alec Garza followed with a walk. Two batters later, Reasor came home on a Mejia single and Garza scored on a passed ball. Later, Meija came around to score and Chad Roberts walked and scored on single by Nick Muniz to take a 4-0 lead.
Lopez cut the deficit with a pair of runs in the first. Gonzalez singled and scored on an RBI-single by Olguin. Olguin would later score on Rodriguez’s sacrifice fly, but the Lobos trailed 4-2.
The Hawks added a pair of runs in the second inning with an RBI-single by Garza and an RBI-double by Jimmy Morton to take a 6-2 advantage.
Maldonado relived starter Alvear after 1 1/3 innings, he allowed no runs on just a pair of hits, walked none and struck out four in 4 2/3 innings of work to earn the win.
Meija took the loss after allowing seven runs on seven hits, walked one and struck out one in 4 1/3 innings for the Hawks.
Leal took the loss in stride.
“You have to give credit to (Lopez), Victor’s always done a great job with his team,” he said. “They deserve the credit (Friday).”
Martinez was happy that his team kept fighting.
“We’ve had a bad first round (of district),” he said. “I’m proud of them, they keep working. They don’t care about the score, they don’t care about the previous game if it was a win or a loss, they just keep working. Good things happen for those kids that have a good work ethic. And these kids kept playing ball.”
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.