South Plantation Turns The Corner With 8-5 Win Over Piper

The South Plantation baseball team was in need of some good fortune. The squad has suffered a few tough early season losses, and the Paladins needed to pick up a big win. On Tuesday night, South Plantation earned that big win in a district match up with Piper.

The Paladins used a six run seventh inning to shock the Bengals 8-5. The game seemed to be lost in the bottom of the sixth, but the Paladins continued to battle into the last inning.

After Piper had scored three runs in the bottom of the sixth, it appeared that South Plantation was headed towards another district loss. In the seventh, however, South Plantation players dug deep and found a gear that had been missing all year.

Lead-off hitter Sal Rodriguez walked, as did Mike Giordano. After a strikeout, John Kennedy singled, loading the bases. Consecutive two-run singles by Matt Miller and Ben Osbourne turned a 5-3 deficit into a 7-5 lead.

“We practice hard every day after school until sundown, because we have no lights on our field,” said Miller, when asked how his team worked to get their season turned around. “We stay consistent with what we do, and eventually it will come, and tonight the hard work paid off.”

For much of the night, it looked like it was going to be the same old story for South Plantation. Piper built a lead in the third on a hit batsman, an RBI double by Orlando Doria, and an RBI single by Bryan Rath.

After the Paladins tied the game in the sixth, the Bengals then scored three runs on one hit in their half of the inning. Two Paladins errors led to the three runs, and it looked as though defense was again going to do South Plantation in.

In the top of the seventh, Piper Head Coach Chris Costanzo lifted starting pitcher Colby Costanzo. The young pitcher had thrown eighty pitches to that point, and Costanzo had faith in reliever Alan Arslanyan.

Unfortunately, the seventh did not go according to plan for Piper, and after South Plantation retired the Bengals in order in the bottom of the inning, they had earned their second district win and moved within one game of district leaders South Broward, McArthur, and Plantation.

“We tried to tell the kids to have a little bit of fun,” said Head Coach Dustin Major, when asked how his team was able to turn around their early season struggles. “At the beginning of the year, they were playing a little tense, a little scared, and we just told them to relax and go out and play their baseball game, not to worry about making mistakes, making errors.”

District 11-6A is up for grabs after Tuesday’s results. With McArthur losing to Plantation, there are now four teams within one game of each other in the loss column. South Plantation improved their record to 2-2 in district play with their win over Piper.

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