Pitching Carries West Broward To District Win Over Cypress Bay

West Broward lost their first game of the season last week to Pembroke Pines Charter, and the way they lost the 13-3 blowout dealt the players’ confidence a severe blow. Coach Mike Moss admitted that his teams confidence was not where it should be, but Tuesday the Bobcats started building that confidence back up.

West Broward received strong pitching performances by Tyler Draughon and Alex Zapata, while scoring enough runs offensively to come away from their game with Cypress Bay with a 4-2 district win.

Draughon started the game and went 4.2 innings, giving up two runs on six hits. He also stuck out four and walked none. In the fifth inning, with West Broward clinging to a three run lead, the Lightning mounted a rally.

After a ground out to short, Micky Saxe and Andrew Paredes both singled. Draughon almost worked out of the jam when lead-off hitter Steven Reznyk flew out to center, but a Jay Woo single plated two Lightning runners and chased Draughon from the game.

Zapata inherited Woo at first, but stranded the tying run when Robert Macneal grounded out to short. From there, Zapata was dominating, retiring five of the final six outs via strikeout, and picking up his first save along the way. The pitching was not overpowering, but Draughon and Zapata followed Coach Moss’ recipe for success.

“They’ve got to mix it up,” said Moss. “They’ve got to hit their spots, which they did a good job of today. No walks, you’ve got to love that. We came at them with the breaking ball and the off speed stuff, and that was the big difference today.”

Offensively, West Broward scored first when lead-off hitter Mike Mordente tripled in bottom of the third and then scored when the relay throw was bobbled by Lightning shortstop Reznyk. The Bobcats added one more in the inning, and two additional runs in the fourth and fifth. Moss believes the hitter must improve heading into Friday’s district game against Everglades.

“We’ve got a lot to work on,” said Moss, after his team ran their record to 1-1, “We’ve got to work on our pitch selection at the plate. Overall we just need to continue to work and get better.”

Cypress Bay falls to 2-1 on the year and will try to avenge Tuesday’s defeat when they face Cooper City, another district rival, on Thursday.

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