St. Brendan Stymies Gulliver Prep To Stay Unbeaten In The District

St. Brendan won its ninth game of the season Tuesday after scoring eight and holding district rival, #1 ranked Gulliver Prep, to only two runs.

The 8-2 win gave the Sabres (9-1 overall) a 3-0 record in 4A District 16 and knocked the Raiders (8-2 overall) to 2-1 in district play.

“Awesome win as a team,” St. Brendan coach John Wurst said. “We thought it was going to be a low-scoring-but-close game,” he said, proud of his team’s ability to score more runs than he anticipated.

The Sabres scoring started in the first after a Jerry Downs grounder was misplayed, allowing Jose Carrera and Dayan Cubas to score.

Sly Edward singled in the third inning then stole second base. He eventually got knocked in by a sacrifice fly from Downs to left field.

The scoring continued in the fourth when a two-out rally began after Brian Galvan was hit by a pitch. Danny Rivero brought Galvan around to score on an RBI double. Carrera followed with a single up the middle to put Rivero in scoring position at third, and Edwards drove in Rivero with his second hit of the game. Dayan Cubas stretched the lead to six after his single darted past the shortstop to score Carrera. Carrera and Cubas ended the night with a pair of hits each.

“We feel good,” Jose Carrera said after the game. “They are our rivals. We came out prepared. We’ve circled this game, and we came ready to play.”

St. Brendan added to its lead after Eric Alvarez doubled and Galvan singled before both came home on Rivero’s second double of the game.

“Everybody was hitting the ball when they had to,” Carrera said of his teammates.

Brian Quinn started on the mound for the Sabres, giving up just two hits and holding the Raiders scoreless until the sixth when he finally got into a jam. After giving up two runs Andres Hernandez relieved Quinn with the bases loaded and proceeded to get two strikeouts to end the rally.

Hernandez faced the top of Gulliver’s lineup to start the seventh and walked two before recording his third strikeout and getting the final batter to fly out to end the game.

“Our pitchers did a heck of a job. We just need to keep moving and keep getting better in every aspect of the game,” Wurst said.

Gulliver Prep lost for only the second time this year but gave up nine hits while leaving eight runners on base. Coach Javier Rodriquez expected more from his team.

“We came out flat,” he said. “They got more hits than us, and we were just terrible today. We’re not even in first place in our district, and to me, that’s terrible. We have the talent to be great, but if we don’t get hits and we don’t play good defense, we’re not going to beat anybody.”

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