The sweet sound of the ping off an aluminum bat is back with spring baseball season officially underway as the Park Hill Trojans split their opening-day doubleheader on Friday, March 21, at Liberty North High School in the KC Metro Leadoff Classic.
Sophomore pitcher Spencer Beltram got the Trojans off to a winning start, leading Park Hill to a 9-3 victory against St. Pius X. The Trojans faced offensive woes as they were shutout by Liberty North in their second game of the day, losing a pitching duel 5-0.
Park Hill relied on a pair of 4-run innings to guide their first win of the year, but the day got off to a shaky start when a fielding error in the first inning with two outs allowed St. Pius to take an early 1-0 lead.
The Trojans answered in the bottom of the second, running four across the plate. A pair of singles from seniors Brandon Jones and Tyson Kiser put the Trojans up 4-1.
Park Hill added a fifth run when Nicholas Huckabey reached on a two-out error in the fourth inning, but St. Pius came storming back in the fifth. The Warriors scored a pair of runs and got the tying run on base, but Antonio Cervantes came up clutch to induce an inning-ending double-play with a 5-3 lead.
Park Hill opened the floodgates for a second time with a two-out rally in the sixth inning. The Trojans showed patience at the plate, loading the bases with three consecutive walks to allow Kiser to get his third RBI with a four-pitch walk before a wild pitch scored another and junior Caelin Bradford blooped one to shallow left field for a 2-RBI single.
Leading 9-3, Cervantes returned to the mound in the seventh to close out the game after an error allowed the leadoff man to reach. Cervantes earned the save with 2.2 scoreless innings of work after Beltram took the win, giving up two earned runs with seven strikeouts in four innings.
Bradford struck out five batters to get the Trojans off to a strong start against Liberty North, stranding seven baserunners across five innings.
After five innings of scoreless baseball, Liberty North finally broke the deadlock in the sixth. Benjamin Highley had a 2-RBI single to right field for the Eagles before the Trojans allowed another by walking in a run.
Liberty North went up 5-0 in the seventh after an error and fielder’s choice allowed another pair of Eagles to cross the plate. After Bradford’s quality start, Logan Conley took the loss with three runs on two hits in 0.2 innings. Huckabey relieved Conley in the sixth and allowed two unearned runs in 1.1 innings with a pair of strikeouts.
Park Hill returned to the diamond for Metro Leadoff action on Monday, March 24, with a doubleheader aginst Liberty and Lee’s Summit West.
The Trojans will pay a visit to Blue Springs South on Thursday, March 27, before a trip to Lawrence for another doubleheader against a couple of South Dakota teams on Saturday, March 29.