West Broward Wins 11-Inning Thriller 5-2 Over Plantation

For two teams that were both in the middle of three-game weeks, Thursday night’s affair at Plantation could have turned into a sloppy game. Instead, West Broward and Plantation played one of the more entertaining games of the season, ending in a 5-2, 11-inning win for the Bobcats.

The game featured two teams that have been playing well as of late. The Colonels had won seven of their past eight coming in, and the Bobcats five of their past six. For both teams, pitching and defense has been key to their recent success, and Thursday night was more of the same.

The Colonels jumped out to a lead in the first inning, scoring two runs. Matt Costa and Jhulian Spaulding had hits in the inning, helping build the two-run lead off West Broward starter Matt Hardy. For Plantation, that would be the end of the offense for the night as Hardy settled in and threw five innings of shutout ball after the first.

“My dad actually played ball here when he was younger,” Hardy said. “He was a big star over here, so tonight, I was just trying to come in and shut them down, but I came in a little too hyped up. After the first inning, I kind of settled in, and then I turned it over to Mark and let him finish it off.”

His head coach had similar sentiments about the junior’s performance.

“It was a special game for Matt,” Bobcats coach Sergio Ambros said. “He had a lot of emotions in the first inning with his dad being a graduate of Plantation. He new he was going to start this game for a while. His grandfather passed away in July, and today would have been his birthday, so it created a lot of emotions, and it showed in the first inning, but once he settled in, he was lights out.”

West Broward battled its way back into the game in the fourth, scoring a run on a Danny Pardo base hit and an error by the Colonels defense.

In the sixth, the Bobcats finally tied the score on a Pardo walk, a Luigi Perez double and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Cody Newell. They then turned the game over to Mark Mendez, and the junior responded by holding the Colonels scoreless for five innings.

The Bobcats made Mendez the winner when they finally broke through in the top of the 11th. West Broward scored using an aggressive style on the base-paths. Pardo again was in the middle of things when he led off the 11th with a single. A wild pitch moved him to second, and another wild pitch had Pardo trying to go from second to home, but Plantation catcher Daniel Vasquez ran down the wild pitch and threw it back to pitcher Peter Almeida, who tagged Pardo out.

The inning continued with a Perez walk. The Bobcats were in business when a Newell ground ball netted no outs for the Colonels. Consecutive base hits by Newell and Gio Ruiz, followed by a Mendez sacrifice fly, and West Broward had the runs needed to win the game.

Although the loss was a tough one, Plantation will have to regroup quickly as they face their second ranked opponent, Monarch, on Friday.

“I come away encouraged by this effort tonight,” Plantation coach Albert Destrade said. “When you look at it on paper, that was the number six team in your rankings over there, and we went toe to toe with them. If we don’t make a couple of key mistakes, this game could have went the other way, so from that standpoint, I’m encouraged, but we need to still understand that our goal the rest of the regular season is to get the number two seed in our district and set ourselves up to win a district championship. Tight games like this against a good team can only help us reach that goal.”

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