By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
Brownsville Veterans Memorial pitcher Fred Villarreal was ready for this game before the season started.
Villarreal allowed just two hits and struck out 13 batters, and Josh Alaniz had a two-run single during the fifth inning to break a scoreless tie as the Chargers defeated Hanna 6-0 in District 32-6A baseball action Friday.
“(Villarreal) pitched a fantastic game,” Brownsville Veterans coach Joey Benavides said. “He worked ahead a lot, got ahead in the count and eliminated his walks. He was up there, he was comfortable and he just had fun.”
The game seemed more like a pitchers’ duel in the early going as Hanna’s Alec Buitron and Villarreal were matching each other inning for inning. But the Chargers took the advantage in the late innings.
Noe Solis singled to start the fifth inning, and the next two batters reached on Hanna errors to load the bases. Alaniz came through with a bloop single to center that brought home two runs in what turned out to be all the Chargers needed.
“(Buitron) pitched a great game. He kept us off balance a lot and has good off-speed, my hat’s off to him,” Benavides said. “We made some adjustments and got the timing down, and Josh came through with a big hit and opened it up for us.”
The Chargers weren’t done, though. Brownsville Veterans added four more runs during the sixth, knocking out Buitron and giving Villarreal a few more insurance runs. But he didn’t need them on this night.
Hanna’s defense that let the Eagles down, as they committed six errors on the night.
“You have to play errorless ball against (Brownsville Veterans),” Hanna coach Eddie Garcia said. “We knew it coming in, we had to play solid D, and everything has to fall into place to beat these guys and it almost did. We had them with two outs (in the fifth) and that little bleeder had eyes, it found a hole.”
Villarreal was too much for the Golden Eagles’ batters. He kept them off balance until he exited in the seventh inning. He finished after pitching 6 2/3 innings, allowing no runs on two hits, walking one and striking out 13.
Benavides said his pitcher didn’t finish his stellar night because he was at his pitch count.
“He’s on a 100-pitch count, and if it was a playoff game then we definitely would have kept him in there,” he said. “But it’s too early in the season for injuries.”
Garcia was impressed with Villarreal, too.
“That kid’s tough, he’s one of the best pitchers in the Valley for what I’ve seen,” he said of the Chargers hurler. “We got overpowered. We’re a young team, and we knew it was going to be tough.”
The Hanna coach took away some positives from the loss.
“It was good experience for my young kids, we battled for four innings,” Garcia said. “We made a couple bad plays there and gave them extra chances, and they took advantage, that’s all.
“They saw with their own eyes they could compete against a solid team, and we’ll take it from there.”
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.