Sunday, May 5, 2024
After a less-than-stellar start against Little River-Academy on Tuesday night, Gatesville baseball coach Chase Smith gathered his squad halfway up the first baseline to regroup.
Down 6-0 after a first half-inning filled with mistakes and near-misses, Smith decided that he needed to cut to the chase – no pun intended – with his crew.
“I told them they stunk that half inning. I told them their body language stunk, and if they didn’t get it together, they were going to get run off the field in front of their home crowd,” Smith said.
It took one more inning, but the Hornets (4-2) more than got it together as they charged back for an 11-7 win to hand the Bees their first loss of the season.
The trio of Bralen Veazey, Clayton Gregory, and Bradey James allowed just five hits over seven innings and did not allow an earned run. Gregory struck out five in four innings of work as the Hornets pitching staff has now gone 16 innings without allowing an earned run.
Veazey, Gregory, and James also did damage at the plate. Veazey had three hits and an RBI while Gregory had a pair of hits. James hit his first home run of the season and scored a pair of runs. His homer highlighted a seven-run second inning that saw Gatesville take an 8-7 lead they would never relinquish.
Gregory delivered a one-out single to start the bottom half of the second-inning that was followed by a John Ibarra walk. Lawson Mooney reached on an error that scored Gregory to make it 7-2. Sophomore Jastin Muegge delivered a sac fly to score Ibarra and move courtesy runner Sean Aguilar to third. Aguilar scored on a passed ball one pitch later to cut the lead to 7-4.
James then launched his no-doubt homer that momentarily looked like it might take out the GISD Administration building to cut the lead to 7-5. The Hornets tied it when sophomore Gehrig Keeton reached on an error that scored Logan Biggs and Miles Tull.
Senior Justin Johnson capped the inning with an RBI single that scored Keeton to make it 8-7.
Tull, a sophomore, went 3-3 in the game with a pair of RBI, two runs scored, and played a flawless centerfield highlighted by a diving catch of a low line drive in the sixth inning. He is hitting .600 through six games this season.
“That sophomore class just brings a really unique energy every day. And Tull and Muegge just feed off each other,” Smith said.
Tull delivered the final offensive blow for the Hornets in the bottom of the sixth when his two-run double plated Cayden Brister and James for a 10-7 lead. He scored the final run of the game on a passed ball for an 11-7 lead.
James closed the game out on the mound and got a sparkling defensive play to end the game. After a pair of strikeouts and a walk, Academy’s Cyler Fuentes doubled to left field and outfielder Justin Johnson slipped trying to make the play.
After a quick recovery, Johnson scooped the ball up on the track and fired to Ibarra, who threw a one-hop bullet to catch Lawson Mooney that nailed Branson Williams at the plate.
In the win, the Hornets racked up 12 hits but committed four errors. On the season, the Hornets are averaging more than ten hits per game but are averaging three errors per contest.
“This is probably the best hitting team I have had since I have been here. If these guys will continue to work on improving defensively and buy in like they have offensively, then we going to really see something special,” Smith said.
The Hornets went 2-2 in the Palestine Tournament on Feb. 22 and 23, notching wins over Tyler and Fairfield and falling to Mexia and Jacksonville.
The 10-3 win over Fairfield featured a 6.1 inning, two-earned run, nine strikeout performance from Keeton and two hits apiece from Veazey, James, and Tull. In their 18-0 win over Tyler, Ibarra and Roman Perez combined to strikeout six and allowed just one hit in four innings. Veazey had three hits in the win, while Muegge, Keeton, and Tull had two hits apiece.
The Hornets now travel to the Stephenville Tournament where they will face Godley, Snyder, West, and old 6-4A foe Stephenville. They will wrap tournament play the weekend of March 7 in Franklin where they will face Cameron Yoe, Smithville, Waxahachie Life, and Lorena.
They will host Palestine on March 13 before heading to No. 4 Taylor on March 15.
“This is maybe the toughest two-week stretch of competition we have played in a really long time,” Smith said. “It’s going to be fun.”
