Sports

Owls on short end of bi-district match up with Poteet

By Jeff Berger
Anvil Herald Sports Editor

      San Antonio -- Too many walks and too many errors continued to plague the Hondo Owls on Friday, May 2, just as they have for much of the 2008 baseball season.
This time, however, it meant an end to the season, and that it was time to pack up the equipment.
     The Owls lost to Poteet, 12-10, in a single-game 3A bi-district playoff at Southwest High School. Poteet, with the win, will go on to face Bandera, which had a first-round bye, in the area round of the playoffs. The Aggies and Bulldogs will clash in a best-of-three series Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon, May 8 and 10, also at Southwest.
     Hondo concludes the year with its ninth straight trip to the playoffs and a season record of 8-15.
     The Owls twice had leads of three runs, 3-0 and 6-3, but couldn’t make either stand up, with the most damaging inning coming in Poteet’s half of the fifth, when the Aggies scored seven runs to take a 10-6 lead.
     Early on, it looked as though the Owls would dominate. After retiring Poteet in the first inning with two runners stranded, Hondo jumped on the Aggies in the bottom half of the inning.
     Two singles, a liner to right and a bunt by Jordan Schneider and Lanham Groff, followed by Cody Tondre’s getting hit by a pitch, loaded the bases for the Owls. Bailey Ross laced a two-run single to right, and Travis Hay singled to right, also driving in a run. Joseph Ortega walked to load the bases, with Hondo already leading 3-0 and with no one out. But the next three batters were all struck out by Jaime Leal, and Poteet escaped with no further damage.
     But Poteet came right back to tie the game with only one hit. Three walks, a hit batter and an error helped make the score 3-3.
     Hondo reclaimed a three-run lead in the bottom of the second, but two questionable calls at first base kept the score from growing even more. With one away, Groff walked. He appeared to dive safely back into first base on a pickoff attempt, but was called out. With two gone, Tondre and Hay walked, with a single by Ross in between. Ortega singled to left, driving in courtesy runners Kevin McGill and Lee Ray Quintanilla. After Noah Ozgo was hit by a pitch, Hay scored on a wild pitch, making it 6-3, and putting two runners in scoring position. Zach Bohmfalk appeared to have beaten out a ground ball to shortstop for a base hit, but he was also ruled out. That took a second run off the board in the inning, and chalked up a second questionable out, but the Owls still held a 6-3 lead, which stood through the end of the fourth inning.
     The wheels came off for Hondo in the fifth inning. Owl pitchers Ross and Ozgo were roughed up for six hits. Two walks and a third strike in the dirt produced three more runners, and two errors compounded the problems in a seven-run Poteet inning, giving the Aggies a 10-6 lead.
Hondo loaded the bases with two outs in the fifth, and Groff appeared to have drawn ball four on a pitch high and outside. The pitch was called a strike, prolonging the at-bat, instead of driving in a run. On the next pitch, Groff lined out to center field to end the inning.
     Poteet added to its lead in the top of the sixth. Hondo erased the lead runner with a 6-4-3 double play, but back-to-back walks, followed by a two-run double for John Perez, gave the Aggies a 12-6 advantage.
     Hondo got back four runs in the bottom of the sixth. Tondre ripped a double to the left field corner, and Ross walked. Both courtesy runners, McGill and pinch runner Colby Freehauf scored when Travis Hay tripled to deep right. After a walk to Ozgo, Allen Lopez lined a two-out double to the left field corner, driving in two more runs.
After Poteet was held scoreless in the top of the seventh, the Owls went down in order in the bottom half of the inning, the only time in the game’s 14 half-innings in which a team failed to get a runners on base.
     Lopez, Ross and Hay all had multi-hit games for the Owls. For Poteet, David Benavidez, Moses Rodriguez, Anthony Huron and Perez all had more than one-hit, among the dozen recorded by the Aggies.