Pines Charter Beats Boynton To Clinch 6A-14 Top Seed

For most baseball teams, a main goal each season is to clinch the top seed in the district tournament.

That goal is not normally accomplished until early April. Unless you’re in a three-team district, that is.

The Pembroke Pines Charter Jaguars achieved their goal on Monday evening by defeating 6A-14 rivals Boynton Beach 4-1. Both teams have already beaten the other team in the district, Stranahan, and all teams play each other only once during the regular season.

“After the game, I told the team they had clinched,” winning manager Carlos Iglesias said. “Then, a couple of guys said ‘we haven’t finished yet. We still have to win the district tournament.’ That’s a good sign; they know what their goal is. This is just the beginning.”

Speaking of beginnings, the Tigers raced to the better start in the contest when they opened the game with a run in the top of the first.

Stephen Kaczmarek led off with an infield single that was hit just too hard to handle, and then went to third when shortstop Ian Acevedo reached on an error. Kaczmarek scored when the next batter, starting pitcher Brandon McCabe, grounded into a 6-4-3 double play.

McCabe, a transfer from Virginia, managed to get through the bottom of the first inning unscathed, despite loading the bases with two outs thanks to a couple of walks, but his lack of control would really hurt him in the second inning.

An infield error allowed lead-off man Peter Dourvetakis to reach, and McCabe dished out free passes to both Trent Herzog and Alex Monge-Rodriguez to load the bases once again.

Up stepped Jake Jacobs, who proceeded to drive a deep double to the gap in right-center, clearing the bags to give the Jaguars (7-2) a 3-1 lead.

After stealing third, Jacobs would cross the plate to extend that lead when the throw to try and catch him got away and rolled down the third base line.

The Tigers (5-4) had a runner on in four of the final five innings, but Pines starter Derick Garcia was on his game all night, allowing only three Boynton runners to pass first base in the game.

“All my pitches were working, including my curve ball finally,” said Garcia (3-1), who now has two complete games on the season and threw 82 pitches. “I felt good, and could have thrown a lot more. “

Iglesias agreed, saying, “Derick pitched outstanding. He was attacking the strike zone all night long. When he’s on the mound you know you have a good chance to win. I love that he goes after hitters. He’s a horse out there.”

Pines Charter threatened to put more runs on the board late, but good work by reliever Kyle Tedesco over the final two innings kept it a three-run game until the final out.

“A couple of walks hurt, but we had opportunities to score,” Tigers coach John Drouin said. “We just struck out looking too much, which hurts. You have a fifty percent chance of hitting the ball if you swing the bat, but a zero percent chance if you don’t. We just have got to score runs. But we’re still young and growing. We’re trying to build a program and we’re starting from scratch, but we’re getting there.”

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