GRAHAM – The Brownwood Lions notched their fourth shutout in the last five outings and pushed their win streak to six games with a 3-0 District 6-4A road triumph over the Graham Steers Wednesday night
“It’s spring break, we’re not on our normal routine, but they got up this morning and hit a little bit, got on the bus and came over for an away game on someone else’s field and settled in and just played baseball. That’s a tribute to them,” said Lions head coach Blake Sanford. “Every single player is a contributor whether they’re on the field or not and we can’t do this without every single member of the team. It’s a team win but individually quite a few of them made some great plays.”
Yovani Figueroa and Noah Gonzalez combined on the shutout for the Lions (12-4-1, 2), who have surrendered just two runs in the last five games and five runs during the six-game win streak. Figueroa picked up the win by tossing six innings of two-hit ball with 11 strikeouts, four walks and five base runners stranded. Gonzalez notched the save as he worked the seventh inning and gave up one hit to Graham (6-8, 0-2) with two strikeouts.
“Yovani came out and did a really, really good job of being around the strike zone the whole night,” Sandford said. “He really kept us in a ball game that was really tough. We’re pretty dangerous as a team when we do get base runners on, but if that doesn’t happen you have to have pitchers that keep them at bay as well. He did a tremendous job and he’s been doing that all year, but this was his shining moment tonight.”
Figueroa and the Lions escaped trouble in the bottom of the fourth as Tripp Mahaney doubled with one out and advanced to third base on a balk. Bruin Wright then drew a walk to put runners on the corner, but Figueroa struck out Ryder Taylor for the second out and catcher Logan Posey gunned down Wright attempting to steal second base for the inning-ending double play with the go-ahead run stranded at third.
The Lions carried over that momentum to the top of the fifth inning and pushed their first two runs across the plate. Austin Pittman led off with a single to right-center field and moved to second base on a sacrifice bunt by Austin Wright. Antonio Ybarra followed with an infield single that allowed Pittman to move to third base. Then, with two outs, Gavin Brandstetter roped a two-RBI triple to the wall to push Brownwood in front, 2-0.
“Gavin did a really good job putting the barrel on the ball and our runners ran well, which is part of our mantra this year, which is to be great runners. We put that ball in play and we were off the races,” Sandford said. “I get a little anxious when we have to let the game come to us sometimes. We had some missed opportunities looking at third strikes in some situations, but finally we started figuring some things out.”
Brownwood tacked on its third run in the top of the seventh inning as Ybarra led off with a walk then stole second base. Jordyn Nickerson bunted Ybarra to third and Brandstetter was intentionally walked. Ybarra then came home on the back end of a double steal when Brandstetter swiped second base.
The Lions are back in action at 7 p.m. Thursday as they host No. 10 Stephenville (11-4-1, 1-0), which reached the Region I-4A finals last year. The Yellow Jackets had a district bye Wednesday and own a 5-0 district victory over Graham.
“They’re very good, very well-coached and have great players,” Sandford said of the Yellow Jackets. “When we go to sleep tonight and wake up in the morning we have a chance to come to the ball park and have a ball game. You hit the ball, you pitch the ball, you field the ball, you throw the ball and you just get out there and go. All the external distractions, you have to eliminate. It’s like Kevin Costner in For Love of the Game, you have to escape the mechanism and play in the moment of each moment and not let things get to you and twist your mind up.”