Gulliver Gets Bats Going Early To Beat St. Brendan

The Gulliver Raiders were faced with a must-win district game Wednesday afternoon in order to stay in contention for the district title. After losing to the St. Brendan Sabres a few weeks back, the Raiders came out focused and ready to play from the get-go, and they were able to beat the Sabres this time around 8-3.

The Raiders used their bats in the first inning to jump out to a nice lead. Three consecutive singles from Ricky Eusebio, Christopher Chinea and Eric Nietzel loaded the bases. Sophomore Joseph Dunand hit a hard-hit ball right down the third-base line for a two-run double. Henry Hernandez hit a groundball to the shortstop to drive in Nietzel from third and reach first safely after a fielder’s choice.

Gulliver’s Carlos Ruga added to the damage with a RBI double, which made the score 4-0 after one inning. The Raiders got six hits in the first as their entire line-up was able to get an at-bat.

Gulliver went with freshman Davis Brown as the starting pitcher. The young starter had a solid outing and didn’t allow the Sabres bats to really get going in his four innings of work.

Brown did struggle a little in the second inning. Sabres catcher Dayan Cubas laid down a bunt for a single that brought some life into his teammates to lead off the inning. Henry Knez drew a walk after a long at-bat, and then third baseman Eric Alvarez turned on a pitch early in the at-bat to send it over the left-field fence for a three-run home run. With the lead down to 4-3, Brown calmed down and got two pop-ups and a strikeout to get out of the jam.

After the second inning, Gulliver got very good pitching from Brown as well as Gabriel Quevedo and Lucas De La Cruz, who both came in as relievers throughout the game. The three pitchers combined allowed only one hit the rest of the afternoon as they shut down St. Brendan.

“We need these guys in the near future and they’re going to be important for us,” Gulliver head coach Javier Rodriguez said. “We know Pelaez is our number one, but we are still looking for other pitchers and settle in here so we are throwing a lot of different guys, and they did well today.”

The Raiders answered right back to the Sabres’ comeback in the second with a home run of their own. The inning started when Chinea hit a deep ball to right center field with two outs that caused the St. Brendan center fielder and right fielder to collide as both made valiant efforts to get to the ball. Chinea came up with a double on the play. After a short delay to make sure the players were not injured, Nietzel worked a 3-1 count and got a fastball down the middle that he put over the fence to extend the lead.

“It all started before the game with our focus,” Nietzel said. “Also this week we worked hard in practice making minor adjustments on the swing and just trying to get the bat on the ball, and it worked out for us today.”

Gulliver continued to tack on the runs later in the fourth inning. Adrian Marin led the inning off and was hit by a pitch. Chinea came up later on and hit a groundball that went right through the third baseman’s legs and allowed Marin to come around to score. Chinea reached third base on the play after another error was made on the same play. Nietzel picked up his third RBI in the game with a sacrifice fly to left field to make it an 8-3 game.

The Sabres brought in pitcher Conley Diaz to help them get back in the game. Diaz did his job and did not allow a hit in hit two and two-third innings of work. St. Brendan failed to make anything happen offensively to get itself back in the game.

“We couldn’t get the bats going at all today, and we made a few errors which against a good ball club you can’t win like that,” St. Brendan head coach John Wurst said. “We will move forward after this loss and get back on track.”

The Sabres will try to bounce back next week with another district game against Coral Shores on Tuesday. The Raiders have a big non-district game Saturday night as they take on American Heritage at Florida International University.

Leave a comment using your facebook account!