Hopwood rolls over Watson and Sons
HOPWOOD – At the end of his game against Watson and Sons, Hopwood’s Brent Baker didn’t get a no-hitter or a shutout, but the pitcher did get the job done in a 5-2 complete game win in Fayette County Baseball League action. Baker gave up just four hits while striking out five batters and didn’t give up a run until the seventh inning. “He had a good game for us,” said Hopwood manager Dan Kupets.
“He was releasing well and hadn’t faced that many hitters in the early innings because of the pop-ups that were batted. He must have retired 11 batters on pop-ups so I was comfortable leaving him in. He was finding the strike zone well and when you do that you can get guys out relatively easily.”
“Baseball is baseball,” said Kupets. “If you have a guy who can pitch well and then the batting can pick up you’ll get the wins.”
Hopwood played sound baseball, taking advantage of opportunities early to take a 2-0 at the end of the first inning.
Lead-off batter Scott Hruby was hit by a Mike Mox pitch while Baker was walked to put runners on first and second base.
Mike Klamerus singled to drive in Hruby while Devin Bowles hit a sacrifice fly to right field to score Baker to make the score 2-0 Hopwood after one inning.
Baker was walked to start the third inning and Andy Patrick hit a single with Klamerus taking a walk to load the bases for Hopwood. However, Hopwood could only gain a single run with Bowles connecting for a another sacrifice fly to score Baker and make the score 3-0 after three innings.
In the fifth inning Ken Musko, Klamerus and Bowles each had singles to load the bases but Hopwood picked up only one run with Musko scoring off of a Mark Riggar single to make the score 4-0.
Nate Fike walked to start the sixth inning and was driven in with a Musko single to make the score 5-0.
“We had some strong hitting tonight,” said Kupets. “Bowles and Klamerus did a nice job for us hitting tonight.”
Watson and Sons – one of two Greene County based teams in the FCBL – prevented the shutout in the top of the seventh with two runs.
Marcus Robinson walked, Ryan Edwards hit a single and Travis Watson had a walk to load the bases with Justin Falcon hitting a single to drive in Robinson and Edwards to make the score 5-2.
After Dave Montebeller walked, A.J. Curtis entered the batter’s box for Watson and Sons with two outs but Baker forced a final pop-out.
“He (Curtis) would have been the final batter for Baker,” said Kupets.
“I was going to pull him after that but things worked out well enough and he got the game.”
Watson and Sons manager Ron Falcon said his team just struggled in the game.
“We just played terribly tonight,” said Falcon. “We struggled in all aspects of the game.”