Jaguars Open Tournament With Win Over Panthers

It may only be the fall, but high school programs around Broward are pulling out all the stops for the HSBN/Perfect Recruits Fall Classic tournament. On Monday night, the Pembroke Pines Jaguars defeated the Somerset Panthers 4-3, thanks to a well executed hit-and-run play, and a timely base hit.

The Jaguars entered their final at-bat down by a run, and it was the bottom of their order that came through on this night. Center fielder Jake Jacobs started off the top of the seventh with a single to right. On the next pitch, the Jaguars executed a perfect hit-and-run with Jacobs breaking for second and Kevin Ellenbogen hitting a ball through the right side for a base hit. Jacobs went first to third on the play, and scored the tying run on a throwing error. It was a play that Somerset Head Coach Onel Garcia had seen many times.

“They executed the hit-and-run pretty well,” said Garcia. “Hats off to them. I played with Carlos (Jaguars head coach) in college. I know he loves to hit-and-run instead of the bunt. That’s why we didn’t play our infield in. We kind of knew that was going to happen, but they executed it well.”

Iglesias then called on pinch hitter Alex Metallides, who came through with the RBI that proved to be the game winner. Going to a Metallides seemed like the perfect call at the time for the Jaguars.

“Alex got a big hit,” said Iglesias. “He’s a very good contact hitter, and we wanted somebody to put the ball in play. He did what we thought he would do in that situation.”

Jaguars starting pitcher Connor Lowther kept Somerset scoreless for the first three innings of the game. Lowther faced only 12 Panthers batters, striking out four, and giving up only one hit. Patrick Mitchell relieved Lowther in the fifth inning and closed it out for the Jaguars with three perfect innings.

Somerset starting pitcher Brandon Acevedo would have been the hero of the game for the Panthers had they held the lead late. Acevedo went six strong innings, striking out five Jaguars along the way. He also came up with the big hit of the game for Somerset, starting a three run rally in the fourth when he ripped a double into the left-center field gap.

Despite the loss, Garcia was pleased with both Acevedo and his defense.

“Acevedo is a big time pitcher, and he is going to win a lot of games for us this year,” said the Somerset coach. “We have good pitching that will always keep us in the game.We are deep on the mound and we have a strong defense. We just need to have better at-bats.”

On the other side of the field, Iglesias was pleased with what he saw, and although the Jaguars got the first win of the tournament under their belt, but the Pembroke Pines Charter coach had a message of one game at a time afterwards.

“Our approach is to take one pitch at a time. we are going to give them the day off tomorrow, and come back Wednesday to practice and get ready for the game on Thursday.”

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