St. Al rolls to 16-1 win over Tigers|[3/19/05]
Published 12:00 am Monday, March 21, 2005
As bad as the pitching was from Crystal Springs, first-year St. Aloysius coach Clint Wilkerson wants his Flashes to remain focused at all times.
St. Al took advantage of nine walks and four hit batsmen to pummel Crystal Springs 16-1 in five innings Friday night at Bazinsky Field.
The Flashes (7-4) had just six hits but managed to sandwich all 16 runs over their final three at-bats.
“That’s what’s good about baseball, no matter what the opposition, we want to compete against ourselves,” Wilkerson said following the rout. “We played okay, but we didn’t compete that well. For whatever reason, we’ve been sluggish over Spring Break, too much laying around all day. We did some good things and (Andy) Wiles was sharp at times and we need that going into a division game Tuesday night.”
Wiles, who improved to 4-1 on the mound, struck out seven in four innings of work. Joseph Brown pitched a 1-2-3 fifth inning.
“It was alright, I was able to hit my spots,” Wiles said. “They weren’t too good, but I’m glad I still got to throw.”
Crystal Springs got its lone run in the first off a hit from Luke Rials, who later scored on an error.
Rials, who also started on the mound for the Tigers, kept St. Al off the board in the first but soon got into trouble in the second.
St. Al’s Johnathan Longmire doubled in Ryno Martin-Nez to tie the game. Marsh Willis then singled to right, scoring Longmire to put the Flashes ahead to stay.
Two walks, three Tiger errors and three passed balls helped chase home the Flashes’ next three runs to make it 5-1.
Crystal Springs’ pitching fell apart in the third inning. Rials and reliever Tyler Burrell issued five walks and hit two to set up an eight-run inning for the Flashes. Curtis Robertson, Martin-Nez and Willis had hits in the rally that upped the lead to 13-1.
St. Al got three more runs off Chase Pinson, the third Tiger pitcher of the game, in the fourth inning.
Willis led St. Al at the plate with two hits and two RBIs. Martin-Nez reached base all three trips and scored three runs. Longmire and Wiles each scored twice.