Flanagan Stakes Claim To District Dominance With 17-2 Win Over Western

Flanagan has been here before. Another team in their district receives some early praise, only to find out that it is still the Falcons that reign supreme in District 12-6A. The latest team to learn that lesson the hard way was the Western Wildcats.

Earlier this week, Western appeared to send a message to Flanagan with their 10-0 win over Everglades. On Friday evening, the Falcons marked the message, “return to sender,” and again established themselves as the team to beat with a 17-2 victory over the Wildcats.

In what is becoming a theme for the 2011 Falcons, Mike Melendez had a strong pitching performance on the mound, surrendering only two runs. Melendez also did the majority of the damage at the plate, going 3-for-3, with a home run, three runs, six RBIs, and a grand slam that put the game out of reach in the fourth inning. For Melendez and his teammates, this game against a previously unbeaten Wildcats team was about setting the tone for this season.

“It was a big district game,” said winning pitcher Melendez. “We wanted to send a message to all the other teams in the district that we’re the big dogs, this is our district.”

Early in the game it appeared as though it was going to be another classic Western, Flanagan, battle. The two teams have played some of the tightest games in the district over the past few seasons, and when Western took the lead in the third inning, it looked like they were prepared to battle Flanagan the entire game.

The bottom of the third, however, changed the feel of the game. In what was one of the most impressive innings in recent history, Flanagan sent seventeen batters to the plate, scored twelve runs, and had nine hits. To lead off the inning, the Falcons had seven straight batters reach base safely. In the inning, four Flanagan players scored twice. The big blow was Melendez’ grand slam, but there were plenty of big hits to go around.

Andres Sanchez had two of those hits, and one, a double, came while the game was still close. Sanchez finished 2-for-2 on the evening, and he echoed the sentiments of Melendez.

“We were excited,” said Sanchez. “We just think positive all the time. We were just trying to make the plays in the field, and hit like we’ve been doing.”

One of the areas of the game that Flanagan has excelled in the past couple of seasons is coming back when they fall behind. Coach Ray Evans believes that it is a mindset to prepare for such situations, and his team showed that again Friday after falling behind 2-1 to Western in the third inning.

“We’re gonna play seven innings,” said Evans. “You’re going to have an inning here or there that you don’t play well, but we never panic.”

Leave a comment using your facebook account!