Douglas Wins Opener 7-0 Over Monsignor Pace

The Douglas Eagles did not play last week in the preseason the way head coach Todd Fitz-Gerald had envisioned when he took over the program last summer. Instead of seeing a dominant force last week, Fitz-Gerald had to sit through a combination of shoddy pitching, sloppy defense, and a lack of offensive fire power.

The good thing for the Eagles was those games did not count, and when the team took the field for its first regular-season game Monday, it resembled nothing like the team that was swept in two games last week.

Douglas’ bats woke up just in time for the regular season, pounding out 12 hits en route to a 7-0 shutout win over Monsignor Pace in the first game of the Falcons Nike/OTS Baseball Challenge. The win puts Douglas in the driver’s seat in Bracket B of the tournament.

“We came away from the preseason knowing it was the preseason, and knowing what we had to work on,” Fitz-Gerald said. “We had two good days of practice, shored some things up, and we did some good things today. We are a work in progress. We played some good defense, we had a couple of bunt base hits, the pitching was great, and overall, it was a good start to the season.”

John Valek took the hill for Douglas, and in the first inning, it looked as if Douglas’ problems from last week would surface again. Valek walked three Pace hitters in the inning but used a pick-off at first base and an inning-ending pop up to third to escape without any runs crossing the plate.

From there, Valek settled in and dominated over the next five innings. The senior lefty did not allow a hit until the fifth inning and allowed only one runner, Alex Perez, to reach third base all game. Perez was thrown out at the plate by left fielder Brandon Dreichler on a single by Bryan Bermudez. Valek finished the game with six innings of shutout ball.

“I had a great pen before the game, and we had a game plan coming in,” Valek said. “We didn’t play well at all last week, and coach stressed that it was the preseason and that this is where it counts. We wanted to come out and make a statement, and I think we did pretty good. This is only step one and we still have to make some improvements, but we’re heading in the right direction.”

Offensively for the Eagles, Chris Pannell came up with the spark Douglas has been looking for when he laced a two-out double to give the Eagles a 2-0 lead in the second inning. Pannell finished the game 1-for-1 with two walks and two RBI. Three Eagles — Derek Fritz, Dreichler and Luis Silverio — had two hits on the day.

On the other side of the field, Pace coach Tom Duffin was expecting more from his guys in the opener, but he understands this is a long season and his team still has two more games left in this tournament to right the ship. One area that was concerning to Duffin was a stretch in the fifth and sixth innings where his batters swung at six consecutive first pitches down 7-0.

“I don’t mind them being aggressive,” Duffin said. “But when it’s 7-0, we’ve got to do a better job of working the count, especially with a guy that had been in the game for a while and threw a lot of pitches in the first few innings. There’s no question our guys have to do a little better job than that.”

One bright spot for Pace on this day was right fielder Andrew McCoy. The junior threw out two Douglas baserunners, including Fritz at home plate to end the fourth.

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