McCoy, Weber Pace Boca Raton’s Shutout Over Calvary Christian

Maroon 5 once claimed that they had “moves like Jagger” but for baseball players in the Palm Beach area, the goal now should be to “pitch like Jagger.” Well, the goal should really be to win, but imitating Boca Raton Bobcats senior pitcher Jagger McCoy might not be such a bad idea either.

In a Thursday night matchup against the Calvary Christian Eagles at FAU baseball’s stadium, McCoy pitched a true gem for the Bobcats. Fully displaying the electricity that terrifies coaches and hitters alike, McCoy threw five and two-third shutout innings as Boca Raton earned their first win of the season with an 8-0 victory over Calvary Christian.

“It’s what we’ve come to expect from Jagger as he’s been one of our aces over the past three years,” manager Scott Morrison said about his star lefty. “Every outing gets better and better and better. I don’t know if I was expecting such a polished first outing from him tonight, but he’s got one of the best changeups in the area that I’ve seen so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. The most important thing from him tonight, though, was his demeanor and how he looked facing Calvary Christain’s hitters.”

Calling a brilliant game for McCoy was junior catcher Matt Weber, who is starting after an injury to senior Michael Amditis. Weber, in addition to catching all seven innings, also had a walk and a bases-clearing double in the bottom of the fifth inning that broke the game open and fully turned the momentum in favor of Boca Raton.

“This was a good win,” Weber said. “We had a big loss with the injury to Mike Amditis and I’m just trying to step in and help my team win a state Championship. It definitely feels good to be walking away with the win tonight. McCoy did a great job; his stuff was working and the offspeed was there. Tonight was definitely Jagger being Jagger and, luckily for us, we’re the ones that don’t have to face him when he’s so electric.”

From the first pitch just minutes after the clock hit 7:00, it became clear that the pitcher-catcher dynamic between McCoy and Weber was one that was working.

“Matt was in a tough situation where he was just looking ahead and he had a pretty good player in front of him, but when Michael goes down with an injury, all of a sudden Matt slides right in and steps up big time,” Morrison added about his now-starting backstop. “We’ve always preached the idea of ‘next man up’ to our guys because injuries can happen at any moment and Matt’s just done an excellent job. He’s catching a really veteran staff and his ability to learn, and to learn quickly, has just been tremendous for us.”

Calvary Christian could only muster up two hits — one from first baseman Christian Scott in the third inning and one from left fielder Michael Cedeno — against the dominant left-hander. While the Eagles did show patience at the plate and foul plenty of pitches off, McCoy proved to be too much on the mound for Alan Kunkel’s squad.

The Bobcats were able to have some success on offense, both using the bat (eight hits) and their patience (three walks). A three-run first inning off starter Noah Yager was capitalized by a two-run single from first baseman Zach Zientarski and an RBI triple from right fielder Noah Richman.

“We did a pretty good job — we were aggressive with runners in scoring position, we put the pressure on the defense, and I think we did a pretty good job attacking when we were ahead in the count,” Morrison said of his offense. “We limited our mistakes and took advantage of capitalizing on mistakes. All in all, I’m very pleased with our showing on offense tonight.”

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