Marlins sweep D’Hanis
in area playoff series
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.