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Bassett responds in 14-4 win
Bengals' baseball team wins season opener
Patrick Henry's Gary Fitzgerald (left) is late with the tag as Bassett's Roy Morgan is safe in the fourth inning. Bassett won 14-4. (Bulletin photo by Mike Wray)
Thursday, March 12, 2009
By JOHNNY BUCK - Bulletin Sports Editor
After squandering a two-run lead in the top of the fifth inning, Bassett coach Bill Parks challenged his club with a mid-inning tongue lashing.
Whatever he said, it worked.
Bassett scored four runs in the bottom of the fifth and added seven more in the next frame to beat Patrick Henry 14-4 on Wednesday at Bassett in six innings.
“I felt we were a little lethargic, in particular some of our guys who have been playing varsity ball for a while,” said Parks, whose team got off to a winning start in its season opener. “I felt we were not focused. I chewed them a little bit, and they responded well.”
Bassett put its first four batters on base in the bottom of the fifth, and all four went on to score.
Caleb Naff began the onslaught with a lead-off single, and Patrick Martin followed with a double. Both Bengals scored one batter later when junior Desmond Woods — making his first varsity start — smacked another double off Patrick Henry reliever Brad Sowers.
Woods’ varsity debut was impressive, going 3-for-4 at the plate with four RBI, one run and two doubles.
“I felt really good in the batter’s box, the best I’ve felt since I’ve been in high school, basically,” said Woods. “The ball just looked like a beach ball up there.”
Naff’s experience couldn’t have been much different. The BHS catcher went 4-for-5 with three runs scored and an RBI.
Parks wasn’t surprised his team hit so well at this early juncture.
“I’ve got guys that have played this game for a while, played varsity for a while, and a lot of them did a lot of work during the offseason,” he said. “I expect us to — I wouldn’t say light the scoreboard up — but I do expect us to put the ball in play with good cuts.”
Martin went 2-for-3 with two runs, two doubles and an RBI, while senior leadoff hitter Paris Ragan went 2-for-4 with two runs and two RBI.
Ragan, a centerfielder, said Parks’ fifth-inning talk dealt with effort more than anything else.
“Basically, he said we were getting lackadaisical, and we were letting them do what they were doing,” Regan recalled. “... We played pretty well. We have some areas to improve on, but we played well overall.”
The Bengals batted around in the sixth inning — scoring seven runs thanks in part to three consecutive walks from Sowers — before the game was called due to the 10-run rule despite the fact that BHS still had one out to burn.
Bassett took a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first, gave up one run to Patrick Henry in the top of the second and then surrendered three more in the top of the fifth.
“We battled back. We made it 3-3, then we get a base hit to go up 4-3, and we just lost it on the mound,” said PHHS coach Aaron Haigler, whose team went 8-12 last year and now sits at 0-1 this season. “We didn’t throw strikes, and that was the difference in the game. They didn’t have to earn it.”
Though Parks wasn’t pleased with the fifth-inning lapse, he was proud of the way his team reacted.
“When we went down 4-3, I thought it was a good character test, and we responded immediately,” he said. “They readjusted, and that’s what good teams do — they adjust and go on and do what they have to do.”
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