Northside Christian Cruises Past Sarasota Christian
Northside Christian took control in the bottom of the first inning and never let up on the Blazers for six innings. After scoring three runs in the first inning on three hits that was all they needed to take down the Blazers by the final score of 11-1.
Pitching would also dominate in this game as two Northside pitchers surrendered only one hit on the night. The Blazers just could not get anything going against the pitching from the Mustang hurlers. Brendon Tracy struck out seven of the Blazers while only giving up one walk. Tracy’s fastball was pretty much finding its way past the Blazer hitters all night long. His breaking ball was also very impressive early in the game being pretty much untouchable.
“I was pretty much able to find my spots all game long with my fast ball ” said Tracy. “My breaking ball was working early in the game, but when it stopped being effective I was able to go back to my fastball and get some outs.”
Right-handed pitcher Zack Yurecka came in for one inning to finish out the game, setting down the Blazers in order.
Sarasota Christian pitcher Grady Martin had a rocky start to the game surrendering three runs in the first and two more in the second. He was able to settle down in the third inning giving up no runs. But as they had done all night the Mustangs would come up to bat in the fourth inning and plate four more runs.
The Blazers defense had it’s struggles Thursday, as they are a young team and some of the kids are just getting started in their varsity baseball playing time. The Sarasota team is coming off of 2015 having an 18-8 record.
“After losing all our experienced players to graduation we were left with a young team,” Sarasota Christian manager Chris Lee said. “As long as we can progress and gel as a team and get better as the season goes along we will be ready for the district playoffs when the time comes.”
Brian Fuller had two doubles to go along with two runs batted in and also scored a run on a busy day at the plate to lead Northside Christian. Colt Olasin had two singles, two runs scored and a stolen base on the day also.
“We wanted to use this game to work on moving our runners into scoring position,” said manager Raul Hernandez. “Bunting the ball in the right spots on the field and the young men did a great job executing the game plan.”