Lazaro’s 12 K’s Leads North Broward Prep Over Pine Crest

The North Broward Prep offense scored in four of six innings, while climbing out of an early 5-2 hole, to defeat Pine Crest 11-9 in a wild affair on Tuesday night. The game was typical of what has come to be expected at this hitter-friendly park.

The Eagles play at a home field that is more fit for a thirteen year-old team than a high school game, and sometimes the short fences can make an extraordinary performance seem average.

That was the case Tuesday night when the Eagles took on district rival Pine Crest. Josean Lazaro started the game for NBP, and the line score shows that Lazaro gave up five earned runs. It was twelve strikeouts in 5.1 innings, however, that exhibited how dominant the senior was for most of this night.

“When you play at this field, you maybe walk a guy, then someone makes an error, and a pop fly could be a home run here,” said Lazaro, who attributed two early home runs not to the park, but instead to his location. “I missed with my fastball with those two pitches, and that cost me.”

Those were the only mistakes Lazaro made, giving up three runs on Ben Arkin’s home run in the first, and two more on a Michael Pierson shot in the third. In the second inning, Lazaro struck out the side, and then in the fourth and fifth the Eagles pitcher struck out five straight Panthers before getting Pierson to ground out to end the sixth.

The offense for North Broward Prep was up for the challenge of a shootout. In the bottom of the first, Mike Vigliarolo, who along with Pierson, is in the running for player of the year honors in Broward, launched his seventh home run of the season, cutting the Pine Crest lead to 3-2.

In the fourth, the Eagles took the lead for good on a Vigliarolo single that drove in Lazaro. Vigliarolo finished the game 3-for-3 with two RBIs and a run. The senior was helped out offensively by shortstop Sarkis Ohanian, who added four hits of his own. With all of the long ball possibilities at North Broward Prep, Ohanian had perhaps the biggest at-bat of the night when he started a five run rally in the fifth with a perfectly executed bunt single.

“We knew this was an important game for us to win to stay on top of our district,” said Ohanian, when speaking about the preparation over the past week. “We worked hard in practice to make sure we did well today.”

Pine Crest made it interesting in the seventh. Lead-off hitter Alex Perez started the inning with a single. After a strikeout, Pierson singled, followed by a Zack Kessinger three-run homer. Arkin was then hit by a pitch and Michael Pozzuoli singled.

After pinch hitter San Kava struck out, Dylan Smith hit a ground ball to third that was mishandled. Suddenly, Pine Crest had the tying runs on base, but Ohanian, who had relieved Lazaro, struck out Jake Toeffler to end the game.

“I was very proud of my kids,” said Panthers Head Coach Glen Pierson. “We had a horrible fifth inning, lost our lead, and got down big, but this team does not quit. There’s a lot of fight in these kids, and we battled back and literally had the go-ahead run at the plate in the last inning. It was very impressive to see these guys keep battling.”

As for North Broward Prep, they ran their record to 10-4 and 3-0 in the district. The team cannot afford to take their foot off the pedal, however, with a match up looming on Friday with one of the hottest teams in the county, district rival Coral Springs Charter.

“The focus will be the same as it is every game,” said Eagles Head Coach Brian Campbell, when asked about the upcoming CS Charter match up. “We’re going to come back tomorrow in practice and get our defensive work. During batting practice we are going to make sure we focus on situational hitting. We’ll go about it as a normal day of work, but we know we have a big test ahead of us and hopefully our kids will be up for the challenge. They’re used to playing good teams, and CS Charter is definitely a good team.”

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