Porter’s Chapel gets back on track with rout of over River Oaks
Published 11:30 pm Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Porter’s Chapel Academy got bashed at the beach, but came out punching when they got back home.
John Wyatt Massey and Gavin White had four RBIs apiece, and Chad Fuson pitched a three-inning shutout as Porter’s Chapel bounced back from a disappointing spring break week by crushing River Oaks 15-0 on Tuesday.
PCA lost all four of its games last week — two of them at the Battle at the Beach baseball event on the Coast — and had a total of two hits in the last three losses. It had six hits Tuesday, with three of them going for extra bases.
“We hit the baseball. Last week we had one hit. Tonight we six or eight, I’ll have to look, and one error. We turned all that around,” PCA coach Rob Riggin said. “Last week we made errors and we didn’t hit. Tonight we hit and didn’t make errors.”
PCA (11-6, 3-0 MAIS District 4-3A) scored all of its runs in the second inning.
White hit a two-run single to break the scoreless tie, and three batters later Massey hit a three-run home run to make it 6-0 and open the floodgates.
Eleven of the Eagles’ first 12 batters in the inning reached base, and they ended up sending 19 men to the plate. Three runs came across on bases-loaded walks or hit batters, and Thomas Azlin ripped a two-run double just inside the third base line to make it 13-0.
An error on a grounder hit by Gavin Pugh brought in the last two runs.
“It was better, but we’ve still got to get better. We haven’t been playing great baseball. I know we can and I’m looking forward to that,” Riggin said.
Azlin, Chase Hearn, Evan Gordon and Brayden King scored two runs apiece for PCA. Massey had two hits and walked once.
Fuson allowed one hit and one walk while striking out four batters in an outing shortened to only three innings by the mercy rule.
PCA and River Oaks are scheduled to play a doubleheader Friday at 3 p.m. in Monroe, Louisiana, but the schedule is tentative because of the threat of rain.
“They were beat down last week when we left Gulfport. They should’ve been. But this helps with player morale. It gets our confidence up and hopefully we can start from here on out,” Riggin said. “We talked about are we going to be 10-7 tonight or 11-6? We’re 11-6 and we’ve got 10 more games to go. We’re going one game at a time. We’re trying to get better every day at practice and every game that we play. Hopefully we can be 21-6 when we get to the playoffs.”