Calvary Christian Picks Up Key District Win Over Sagemont

Calvary Christian has played some up-and-down baseball this season. At times, the Eagles have looked like one of the better teams not only in their district, but in the county. On other occasions, Calvary has looked like the young team that it is on paper. Tuesday afternoon was one of the good days in the Eagles’ season.

Austin Sovay threw five solid innings and Nick Kumar drove in three runs as Calvary defeated Sagemont 8-3 at Tequesta Park in Weston.

“This is a tough place to come and play,” Eagles head coach Greg Mucerino said after the win. “I don’t know why it is, but we always struggle over here. Whether it’s the park, the atmosphere, Sagemont, so we really talked about that leading into this game. The guys had good approaches at the plate, had some good at-bats, and we were fortunate to get out of here with the win.”

Much of the offense for Calvary came in the third inning. With the score tied at one, Ryan Reilly led off the inning with a beautifully placed bunt single. After two consecutive outs, it looked as though Sagemont pitcher Junior Bahder was going to escape trouble. Kumar’s first RBI of the game gave the Eagles the lead with a single, and then a two-out error opened the door for RBI singles by Jonathan Benestadt and Sovay. By the end of the frame, Calvary had built a 4-1 lead.

The Eagles’ offense then tacked on two more in the fourth. Singles by Jonathan Gregory and Andrew Gottfried set the table for Kumar’s next two RBI, produced on a single to right. An offense that had been inconsistent this season had suddenly staked Sovay to a 7-1 lead.

“We had been practicing as a team going to the opposite field,” Kumar said. “That’s been our mentality, and that’s what I tried working on today. We’ve been working hard on our offense in practice. Coach Moose does a great job of working with our hitting, and when we’re on, we’re on. Today was one of those days.”

Sagemont started Andres Vazquez on the mound, but early on, the coaching staff could see that Vazquez did not have his best stuff. The offense also struggled for much of the day with Sovay’s off-speed stuff. The approaches at the plate is something Lions coach Tommy Martinez believes must get better.

“This team can hit fastballs,” Martinez said. “We’ve worked hard on the off-speed approach. One of the hardest things for any hitter to do is to look middle-away and go with the pitch. We just weren’t doing that today. When we did try to go the other way with the outside stuff, they were dropping their back half a little bit. When they see something middle-away, they just need to be patient and drive the ball to right.”

Calvary Christian improves with the win to 6-3 overall, but more importantly, 3-1 in District 3A-14 play. The Eagles are a half-game ahead of second-place Coral Springs Christian and have opened up a full-game lead over third-place Sagemont.

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