3A BASEBALL: Wildcats hold on to sweep Opp and advance

Ben Easterling, (left) and David Michael Lieux celebrate a home run in Trinity’s win over Opp on Thursday. (Tim Gayle)

By TIM GAYLE

Trinity carried comfortable leads into the late innings of a quarterfinal playoff doubleheader against Opp, but had to hang on after surrendering three runs in the sixth inning of the first game and two runs in the seventh inning of the second game.  

“I guess that’s the way we like to do it,” Trinity coach Jarrod Cook said. “There is an easier way, but we just ain’t found it yet.”

It might have been a little uncomfortable at times, but the Wildcats used a balanced offense and steady pitching to subdue the Bobcats 7-3 and 8-5 on an unseasonably hot afternoon at Whittle-Armstrong Field on Thursday. 

“I think the weather played a big factor in a lot of things but we grinded it out and that team is solid,” Cook said. “They’re really, really good kids, coached well, play the game the right way. We’re fortunate to be moving on.”

Trinity (29-7) will play the winner of Friday’s quarterfinal matchup between Bayside Academy and Thomasville, either at home against Bayside or on the road against Thomasville. A matchup with Bayside Academy would be a bit more meaningful to the Wildcats, who remember three one-run matchups with the Admirals in Daphne last year as Bayside rolled into the 3A finals. 

“We want revenge on them,” Trinity senior Ben Easterling said. “Last year, they came out on top in the three-game series that had two extra-inning games. It’s something we know, that we can hang with their pitchers. We came out and competed with them last year and we had the game several times. We lost those two games by one run.”

Easterling set the tone against the Bobcats, holding them off the scoreboard in the first game until a three-run sixth by Opp finally exhausted his pitch count.

“He wasn’t as sharp with the secondary stuff as he has been, but he’s a bulldog, a senior, and you know what you’re going to get,” Cook said. “You’re going to get a guy that’s going to go out there and compete on every pitch. 

As the temperature reached 90 degrees, Easterling had to labor at times to keep the Bobcat batters in check.

“They have a lot of good players,” Easterling said. “They have a lot of nice guys that come from good parents. They weren’t going away. Guys kept getting on base, finding a way, putting the ball in play and making something happen.

“Toward the later innings, my secondary stuff was coming on, which helps a lot. When you’ve only got one pitch to throw at them constantly for a strike, they can see it and hit it well. But if you’ve got other pitches you can throw at them and make them guess, that’s how you get them out, especially when you throw ‘backward’ like I do.”

Easterling would use his breaking pitch to set up a fastball later in the count, but the Bobcats had figured it out by the sixth inning and used four hits and a walk to cut the deficit to 7-3.

Trinity had broken open the game with a six-run fourth as Brady Rascoll had a two-run double and Jordan Jenkins and Easterling added RBI doubles to go up 7-0. 

In the second game, like the first, Trinity was clinging to a 1-0 lead when Easterling stepped up in the fourth and slugged a solo home run to spark the Wildcat offense.

“I had been looking for that pitch all day and I had missed it twice already,” Easterling said. “I knew I had to get my hands above it because with an elevated fastball like that, you get your hands behind it or catch it a little bit further behind the plate and it’s going to be a pop fly. So I was making sure I was on time, kind of spreading out early in the count. I was looking for a pitch to do damage with. There was nobody on base and I was leading off the inning so I was thinking it was a 1-0 game, what’s it going to hurt to hit one hard on the first swing.”

Grayson Ashe added an RBI double an inning later and Rascoll and Jenkins followed with RBI singles in the sixth as the Wildcats pulled out to a 5-2 lead to take the pressure off freshman pitcher Fleming Hall, who allowed three runs on six hits over the first six innings. 

“Fleming has proven he can go out there and do it,” Cook said. “We went three games with Providence (in the first round) and he’s the guy that goes out there for game three. We’ve got all the confidence in the world in him. I had to pull him at the end (because of the pitch count) and luckily Coleman (Stanley) came in and he had good stuff.”

Stanley surrendered back-to-back singles before snaring Cody Walsh’s line drive back to the mound and throwing to first to double off Ethan Cox for the second out. Three batters later, Tanner Burlison flew out to end the Bobcats’ season at 24-10 and send Trinity into the semifinals against either Bayside or Thomasville. 

“We try to tell the guys it’s just another pitch, it’s just another game, and I know it’s hard because there’s a lot on the line,” Cook said. “There’s a lot of built-up anticipation and our guys, I know, they’ll come ready to play and we’ll face a good ballclub.”

Ashe went 2 for 6 and drove in a pair of runs and Easterling went 2 for 7 and drove in a pair of runs, but most of the production came from Rascoll (4 for 6, three RBIs) and Jenkins (3 for 6, five RBIs).

Walsh’s line drive was only the second time in seven at-bats the Trinity pitchers managed to record an out against the Opp catcher. The Bobcats’ top hitter this season, Ethan Cox, went 3 for 6 with a pair of walks and drove in a run.