Pius X wins again in Class B baseball

 1 comment(s)  
 E-mail Story
 Print Story
  Share

 digg it!
 Facebook
 del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit

Text Size: 

Tools Sponsor

BY KEN HAMBLETON / Lincoln Journal Star

The bats must have had a feeling.

The batters had a good idea.

Lincoln Pius X coach Troy Charf was positive his team would start hitting and scoring the way the Thunderbolts had all season.

After two low-scoring games, Pius X exploded for a 14-8 victory over Ralston on Wednesday in a Class B elimination game at the State Baseball Tournament at Den Hartog Field.

“The law of averages had to catch up with us sometime,” said Charf, whose 15-11 team advances to Thursday’s 4 p.m. elimination game at Den Hartog.

Pius X junior right fielder Alex Jones ignored all the averages.

He hit two triples, a double and a single, and batted in six runs to help the Bolts jump to a 14-1 lead.

“We were going to hit our pitches and relax and get going at the plate,” said Jones, who singled in the first Pius X run in the first, tripled in two more in the second and tripled in three in the third.

Meanwhile, Pius starter Ben Raun held Ralston to five hits and a run in the first inning, while his teammates blasted away for 13 hits in the first four innings. Eric Schleppenbach and Pat Essay each doubled. Aaron Molinaro and Raun singled twice in the rout.

Ralston finally answered with a couple of unearned runs in the fourth inning and plated five runs with two outs in the fifth.

“We were playing so uncharacteristically for us,” said Ralston coach Marty Santoni. “We’d never been behind like that or given up that many runs all season.

“The top of the Pius order is very strong, and that Jones, wow. He had a couple of big, big hits. They’d get guys on base and he brought them in over and over.”

Jones said the hitting was contagious throughout the Pius lineup.

“One guy gets a hit and the next guy goes up there with confidence,” he said. “Once we got going, we really had a team effort at the plate.”

The top seven hitters in the Pius lineup had at least one hit.

“If we’ve learned anything in this tournament, we learn we’re able to play in the tough games and play some pretty good baseball,” Charf said.

“The thing we saw today, is that we can hit and score, but just as easily, Ralston started hitting, getting balls in spots we couldn’t get to and they came on us.”

Omaha Skutt 3, Gretna 0

Skutt advanced as Payton Brannen and John Elliott both drove in runs in the first inning. SkyHawk starter Michael Schenkelberg, who went the distance, made that stand up after working out of jams in the first and second innings.

Reach Ken Hambleton at 473-7313 or khambleton@journalstar.com.