Tracy Press

So far, a tournament in Atwater is going well for Tracy's boys of summer.

The Tracy and West high baseball teams followed up wins in Atwater on Monday with victories on Tuesday, and they’ll find out today whether they'll be in the running for Thursday’s tournament championship game.

The local teams are part of the eight-team field in the 49th annual Atwater Winton Lions Club Easter Baseball Tournament at Memorial Ball Park in Atwater.

West plays Merced at 4:30 p.m. today, and Tracy plays Atwater at 7:30. Results from the first three days of play will determine the matchups for Thursday’s games.

Tracy 8, Moreau Catholic 5

B.J. O’Brien was more than a little frustrated that he struck out twice in a row against Moreau Catholic’s pitcher Tuesday.

"But it makes you want to go out and hit," he said. "I knew if I got a hit, it would give us a chance to win."

His shot to left field in the fifth inning, with Justin Evans and Vince Canale on base, erased the lead Moreau had established in the first two innings and tied the game at 5-5. O’Brien then stole second, got to third on a wild pitch and raced home for the go-ahead run when Bobby Agaard hit the ball to shortstop.

O’Brien got even for his first two at-bats when he went from the outfield to the pitcher’s mound in the seventh inning and closed the Bulldogs’ 8-5 win with three strikeouts in a row.

Coach Vic Alkire said the team’s confidence wins games like this one. Tracy scored two runs in the first inning, then quickly fell behind when Moreau got four hits in a row off Tracy starter Daniel Heefner.

"The pressure doesn’t seem to bother these kids," Alkire said.

Kyle Moses rotated in for the next five innings, gave up two runs in the second and logged seven strikeouts.

Tracy is 10-2 for the season.

West 6, Central Catholic 2

Central Catholic may have out-hit the West team Tuesday, but the Wolf Pack batters made it count.

The game went scoreless for the first three innings. Then, in the fourth, the West batters took advantage of a couple of walks, an error, and key hits by Riley Goulding, a double, and Anthony Salsedo, a single, to score four quick runs.

"We stayed patient … put it in the grass when we needed to and got the big hits with runners in scoring position," coach Jim Rice said.

West collected seven hits. Meanwhile West pitcher Ryan Devencenzi allowed eight hits over seven innings for Central Catholic but gave up only one walk.

"Ryan pitched a great game, and the team made the plays behind him," Rice said, including an instance in the sixth where the infield turned a double play.

"He settled down in the seventh inning and induced three ground balls to end the game," Rice said. "It was a solid team effort."

The win puts West at 7-5 for the season.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments