Sports

The 2013 baseball season came to an end Saturday evening for the D’Hanis Cowboys, who dropped both games of a Class 1A area playoff series with Port Aransas on May 10-11.

The Marlins won Friday’s game, 3-2, at Rockport-Fulton High School. Then on Saturday, Port A won again, this time by a 7-5 score at Hondo High School’s Bridges Field.

D’Hanis ends the season with a District 30-A championship and a 17-6-2 season record.

Port Aransas (25-3), the co-champ of District 31-A will now advance to the regional quarterfinals, where they’ll take on Ben Bolt, the winner of 32-A. Ben Bolt eliminated Brackett in a best-of-three series over the weekend.

In Friday’s series opener at Rockport, the Cowboys took the lead with single runs in the top of the first and third innings. But Port A answered with single runs of its own, coming in the third, fifth and sixth innings.

The Marlins outhit D’Hanis, 6-4, but the Cowboys committed five errors, to just one for Port Aransas.

D’Hanis got on the board in the first when Chance Barlow hit a leadoff single, and Clint Rothe followed with an RBI double.

Barlow had two hits in the game for D’Hanis.

Both starting pitchers went the distance Friday, with Cody Zerr working all six innings against the Marlins’ lineup and Tyler Pate going seven innings for Port Aransas. Zerr struck out nine batters, and Pate fanned 13.

Entering play on Saturday, the Cowboys needed to win twice in order to advance to the regional quarterfinals.

The Cowboys dropped the first game of a best-of-three series with the Marlins in 2012, but came back to win twice, advancing another round on their way to the regional finals.

The Cowboys again had the fast start on Saturday at Bridges Field, scoring twice in the bottom of the first. Then after Port A matched that total, D’Hanis struck again for two more runs in the second to take a 4-2 lead.

Port Aransas, though, chipped away, scoring a single run in each remaining inning to take a 7-4 lead into the bottom of the seventh. D’Hanis loaded the bases in the final inning, but could only get one more run home, falling 7-5.

The Cowboys held the hitting edge, 6-5, but again, the error bug took its toll, as D’Hanis committed six.

Zerr had two hits and drove in two runs for D’Hanis.

Rothe went the distance for the Cowboys, striking out 12 Marlin batters. Jake Roberts and Caleb Rogers combined efforts for Port A, striking out 11 total. Roberts got the win, with 5 2/3 innings of work.