After an up-and-down first month of the season and a couple of district losses, Porter’s Chapel Academy baseball coach Wade Patrick admitted that things haven’t been a whole lot of fun for his team lately.

For a little while Wednesday, at least, the Eagles rediscovered their smile.

Brayden Ray went 3-for-3 with five RBIs — four of them on a grand slam — and three runs scored, and Kyle Guider allowed one unearned run in four innings as PCA hammered Rosa Fort 13-1 in the Battle on the River spring break tournament.

The win came at a good time for the Eagles, who lost their first two district games against crosstown rival St. Aloysius last week and had dropped three of their previous four overall before breaking out against Rosa Fort.

“I told them, ‘Let’s have fun,’ because I didn’t think as a team we’d had fun this year at all,” Patrick said. “That’s what I wanted to see, was us getting out there and playing like kids. That doesn’t mean you’re joking around in the dugout. You’re in the game, but you’re having fun playing the game.”

PCA (4-6) only had seven hits, although it scored in all four innings of the mercy rule-shortened game. All nine starters reached base and scored at least one run.

Ray delivered an RBI single and scored on an error in the bottom of the first inning to put the Eagles ahead 2-1, and then delivered the big blow during a 10-run rally in the second.

Two walks, two hit batters and an error plated two runs and brought Ray to the plate with the bases loaded. He lifted a high drive over the left field fence for his first home run of the season and second grand slam of his high school career to make it 8-1.

“My first home run was a grand slam, so it was good to do it again. I’ve hit a few in between. They were two- and three-run shots, nothing big. That one meant something to me,” Ray said. “It broke the ice. You can’t ever let up on a team, but that helped a lot.”

Glenn Alan Kittrell and Josh Smith each had RBI singles, and Leon Simms an RBI double later in the second inning. Ray singled and scored on Kyle Guider’s double in the third to round out the scoring.

Frederius Steele reached on a three-base error on a line drive to center field in the first inning and scored on a ground out by Nik English for Rosa Fort’s only run. After that, Guider danced around trouble all game but never got burned.

Guider hit three batters, walked two, and gave up a pair of hits as Rosa Fort loaded the bases in both the second and third innings. Guider picked one runner off of first, however, and another was tagged out at home while trying to score on a passed ball. To escape the third-inning jam, Guider got Jadeis Carter to hit into a 4-6-3 double play. Guider then retired the side in order in the fourth to finish it.
Guider finished the game with four strikeouts.

“That’s key to anything, is you’ve got to be able to get out of situations that you put yourself in. You want to see us make a play to help him out. You’re not going to get a strikeout every time,” Patrick said. “That was good to see us doing that.”