West Broward Holds Off Late Comeback By Western

Opening day always seems to bring smiles back to the baseball diamond for the kids and fans. The West Broward Bobcats played host to those smiles as they weclomed the Western Wildcats on what was a beautiful Tuesday afternoon for baseball.

The Bobcats played a fundamentally sound game on the defensive side, winning 7-4 over the Wildcats. In addition to the defensive efforts, they came up big at the plate with hits in key situations. They were backed by a magnificent pitching performance from starter Michael Schappell. Schappell, a junior, started his first opening day game, throwing 6 and 1/3 shutout innings, striking out three and walking none.

“I was really focusing on pounding the strike zone today,” said Schappell. “I know Western from playing them before; they’re a pretty good team. Once you give them a couple opportunities to hit the ball they will really pounce on you, so you gotta make sure you don’t give them those opportunities. Our defense played really well today, no errors, and that pretty much does it.”

The Bobcats were able to manufacture an early run to go ahead. Steven Revilla was able to get on base and find his way around to score in the bottom half of the first.

For the next few innings, both pitchers battled in not allowing either team to score a run, let alone a base hit.

It took until the second time around the lineup before the first hits were recorded for either school. Western sophomore pitcher Joesph Spano kept pace with his counterpart, until two outs in the bottom of the fourth when the Bobcats Antonio Gonzalez was hit by a pitch.

“I think the hugest thing about that fourth inning, is with two outs we get a guy what we call “wear one“, he wears one for the team and gets on base,” said Bobcats Manager Sergio Ambros. “We get our first hit from our junior shortstop and that gets us going. Then that home run by Evan, he works the count 3-2 and knows he has to come in there and he can just sit back on one. But it all gets started with somebody we call “wearing one” for the team and extending that inning.”

Evan Stocker, a senior infielder for the Bobcats, hit his first career high school home run and added three RBIs. With one swing of the bat the Bobcats extended their lead to 4-0. Stocker finished the game going 2-for-3, a stolen base, two runs scored and three RBIs.

“Coaches were telling me to go the other way because I’ve been pulling the ball too much,” Stocker said. “I just tried to react on an inside pitch.”

After adding another run in the fourth and scoring in both the fifth and sixth, the Bobcats extended their lead to 7-0.

In the top of the seventh after the Bobcats went to the bullpen, the Wildcats bats woke up. At the plate with one out and nobody on, Anthony Difabio singled to the outfield. Looking for some help from his fellow senior, Chris Baetzel followed with a base hit of his own. With two outs and runners in scoring position, sophomore David Flores put the Wildcats on the scoreboard with a two-run single to center.

With Flores on first, his senior teammate Alex Balter recorded his first hit of the afternoon on a two-run home run to the trees down the left-field line.

“Their pitcher did a good job, but offensively we gotta be a lot better than that,” said Wildcats Manager Paul Barnes. “Hopefully it was their pitcher being that good and not us being that. It was a very defensive approach tonight, not very aggressive, almost like we were trying to hit with two strikes the whole time.”

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