Lake Nona managed just one hit again Osceola on Wednesday night, but it was enough to send the Lions to a 3-2 win over the Kowboys.
With the score tied 2-2 in the bottom of the sixth, Cesar Chirinos led off the inning by ripping a triple into the left-centerfield gap off Kowboys reliever Blake Birchler for the Lions’ first and only base hit of the night. Three pitches later, pinch runner Diego Reyes raced home when a Birchler breaking ball bounced past catcher Edwin Melendez.
“It was a playoff atmosphere tonight against a great team and we simply made a couple of mistakes at the wrong time,” Coach Scott Birchler said. “The pitching was great tonight on both sides and they just happened to get the big hit at the right time.”
Osceola, 2-1, started off strong, pushing a couple of runs across in the second inning to take a 2-0 lead.
With one out, Birchler and Jason Ramos reached on back-to-back walks before Luis Nunez loaded the bases with a sharp single to right. Nunez would be forced at second on a sharp ground ball to third by Isaiah Jean Baptiste, but Omar Lopez’s relay throw trying to double up the speedy Baptiste was late and wide of first as both Birchler and Ramos scored on the play.
Starting pitcher Carlos Negron sailed through the first three innings for Osceola, facing the minimum of nine hitters and striking out five in the process. “It’s early in the season and the plan was to just let Carlos go through their lineup once,” Birchler said of his junior.
The Lions, now 5-0 and ranked first in the state in 7A according to MaxPreps, would tie the game in the bottom of the fifth without the benefit of a hit.
Carlos Celta and Omar Lopez opened the inning with back-to-back walks off reliever Shawn Lara. Celta would score when Lara would over throw first base after fielding Daniel Gomez’s sacrifice bunt. Although Gomez would be thrown out at second on the play, Lopez was able to advance to third. Lara would get the second out of the inning by getting Drew Rosenberg to pop out, but the tying run would score on Luis Nunez’s two-out throwing error on Humberto Segura’s ground ball.
“Two plays we routinely make,” Birchler said. “Luis makes that throw 99 times out of a 100. It just sailed on him a little bit.”
While the Kowboys were limiting Lake Nona to one hit, Osceola put six hits on the board and had runners in scoring position in three of the first four innings. But the bats went silent in the second half of the game, as Osceola managed just one hit and struck out six times in the final three innings.
Starter Zach Hopper allowed just one earned run and struck out five for Lake Nona. Reliever Myles Lovato worked one inning to pick up the win; while Bryan Figueroa struck out three and allowed a hit in picking up his first save of the season. Blake Birchler took the loss for Osceola.
“Tough way to lose a game,” Scott Birchler added. “But we’ll see them again in the regular season and probably again in the post-season so there’s no need to read too much into it. It’s an earlier season game for both us and it will be a learning experience for us.”
