Taravella’s Big Inning Takes Down Coral Springs

After handing Monarch their first loss and Coral Glades their second loss, the Taravella Trojans broke the bats out on Thursday night, collecting five extra base hits, including a solo home run by Henry Matias and scoring eight runs en route to a victory over the Coral Springs Colts, running their district record to 3-1 and solidifying themselves as a top dog in 8A-11.

The Trojans’ offense took a few innings to get going but once it did, it was all systems go. After only managing one base runner in the first two innings, the Trojans exploded for five runs in the third. Manager Alan Clark says that has been his offense’s MO so far on the young season.

“Sometimes we start slow but after our second or third at-bats, we start to swing the bat better,” Clark said. “Overall, offensively, we are doing our job.”

The Trojans’ five run third proved just how potent their offense can be as it saw a little bit of every kind of hitting. Santiago Cardona played the table-setter, getting things started off with a single. After Matias was hit by a pitch, Andrew Labosky proved the Trojans can hit well situationally when he knocked in a run via a sacrifice fly. The next two hitters brought the boom: Gavin Robinson contributed an RBI double and Nick Sanders cleared the rest of the bases with a 2-RBI triple.

Taravella tacked on single runs in the 4th, 5th and 6th innings, the last of which Matias was solely responsible for. The third baseman, barreled up a ball and drove it over the dead center field wall, well out of JPT Field. It was part of a 3-for-3 night in which Matias was on base in all four of his plate appearances.

“He’s a special guy,” Clark said of Matias. “When he’s hot, he’s on and he can absolutely wreak havoc on the bases.”

On his approach at the plate on the night, Matias, a native Puerto Rican, said he wasn’t trying to do too much but rather just trying to do enough to provide positive contributions.

“I’ve been working really hard,” Matias said. “I was seeing the ball well but I was just trying to hit line drives. It just happened that one of them went out.”

Being the team player he is, Matias downplayed his excellent night and lauded his teammates.

“It’s not just about my stats; this was more of a team win,” Matias said. “I’m really proud of all of my teammates.”

Matias had reason to be proud of his fellow Trojans. On the night, eight of them were on base at least once and five of them contributed at least one RBI.

Against a good offense, starter Zach Pernick was effective, getting through the sixth inning while only having to fire the rock 90 times. 60% of his offerings went for strikes. After giving up a run in the first, Pernick faced the minimum over the next two innings. He ran in to a bit of trouble in the fourth and fifth innings but was able to limit damage to just three total runs. He enjoyed a 1-2-3 sixth inning before giving way to Blake Bowman who sealed the victory for Taravella. Although he admitted he had his struggles to start innings, Clark was plenty proud of his starting hurler.

“The only issue he really had was putting the lead-off guy on a few times. That’s really where he got in to a jam and they scored a couple runs,” Clark said. “”He did his job, though. He threw strikes all night.”

Pernick’s night was helped along by his battery mate, Michael Fitschen. In addition to calling a great game and nailing a potential base stealer at second base in the second inning, Fitschen made a great heads up play in the third. From his crouch, Fitschen made a snap throw to third base, catching a runner off of the bag and initiating a rundown before tagging the runner out. The play erased two possible chances the Colts would have had with a runner at third and no outs. Fitschen also went 2-4 at the plate with a double and an RBI.

Despite falling behind by four runs early thanks to Taravella’s big inning, Coral Springs battled back. They were able to do so in the fourth inning by taking what the Trojans gave them. After a Tony Curry single lead off the frame, Jeremy Szozda and Phillip Quinn drew walks. Curry and Szozda then came in to score on an error. The Colts made it a four run game again in their half of the fifth when Curry knocked in a run. The RBI put the cherry on top of a 2-for-3 night for the first baseman. Asked about the success of his clean-up hitter, Manager Frank Bumbales had just four words:

“That’s why he’s there,” Bumbales said.

However, that was as close as the Colts would get. Bumbales attributed the loss to the Colts not taking advantage of opportunities with runners in scoring position. On the night, the Colts were 4-for-10 in that category.

“We can’t give them eight runs and then lose all the opportunities we had with runners in scoring position and not take advantage,” Bumbales said. “Someone has to put the ball in play. We just left too many runners on base.”

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