Zion Lutheran Tops Lake Worth Christian 10-3

Sunday, March 9th at 2:00 AM will be equivalent to a new years celebration for high school’s without lights at their facilities. The extra hour that Daylight Savings provides to the day, makes all the difference in finishing a game or stopping it short.

On a gorgeous Tuesday afternoon, and game time set for 3:30 Zion Lutheran played host to Lake Worth Christian. Unable to play a complete seven innings due to darkness coming early, the Lions topped the Crusaders 10-3 in five innings.

As the sun was shining bright, and the sound of cars passed on the busy bordering road, Lake Worth jumped out to an early lead off Lions starter Michael Blanco. Luke Comerford drew a first inning walk, and advanced to second on an over thrown pick-off attempt. Robbie Santiago followed with a RBI double to put Lake Worth up 1-0.

Blanco settled down from there, striking out four, and allowed one hit in three innings. Despite jams in each inning for the Lions, Blanco leaned on his defense to help retire and keep the Lake Worth Defenders from scoring.

“I feel good about our team. At first we started off bad, but now were like a family,” said Lions Jouseph Renovales. “First we have to fail to succeed.”

Sometimes having a lot of speed doesn’t help if you cannot get on base. In the bottom of the first, trailing 1-0, the Lions answered back with four runs of their own. A total of nine stolen bases on the day, the Lions swiped three of those in the first. Blaine Baker had the big blow in the inning, with a drive that bounced off the top of the fence and fell over. Baker accounted for three of the four runs in the inning with that swing of the bat.

Jouseph Renovales went 3-for-4 with two triples, and two runs scored on the afternoon.

“We are getting better, were still a new group and trying to learn how to play together. They always played hard, but now were playing smarter. Guys are accepting their responsibilities. We had a few bumps in the road early, and now were coming together,” said Lions Manager Ray Ayala. “We tried to go more in an attack mentality and try to work the count and wait for our pitch. We want to make the pitcher make a mistake, and once the balls get in the gaps we run, (round and round) and make it a track meet.

When asked about being patient, (seven walks) and aggressiveness on the bases (nine stolen bases and 11 hits), Ayala had his answer.

“It’s a very fine line, and that comes back with the approach at the plate and hitting our pitch. We want to make you pitch the ball where we want to hit it not where they want to throw it. We’re still a young team and we are getting [there].”

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