Calvary Beats Orangewood For 4th Straight Win

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The Calvary Christian Eagles are clicking on all cylinders right now. Heading into the thickest part of its schedule, Calvary delivered a balanced performance for a 4-1 home victory over Orangewood Christian on Tuesday. It is the team’s last game before a tough Spring Break tournament in Jacksonville, which will then be followed by five straight district games.

Tuesday’s performance showed that the Eagles (6-3) are up to the challenges. The offense piled up eight hits and executed well with runners on base, the pitchers held the Rams to two hits and one run, and the defense was reliable and turned a key 4-5 double play to end the fifth.

“The whole game we were just trying to grind it out and we ended up getting the win,” shortstop George de La Fe said. “Our approach today was just trying to stay in the middle of the field, go opposite field with it. The wind was howling; if you hit a ball up the wind was going to take it to right field.”

Calvary got going to take the lead with its first swings in the bottom of the first inning. Dante Girardi drew a one-out walk and catcher Ben Rozenblum followed by crushing a shot to the deepest part of center field for an RBI double. Daley Weppner came in to run for Rozenblum and Luis Ezra was hit by a pitch to add another base runner. Victor Pimental then slapped a flare into shallow right field to score Weppner for the 2-0 lead.

Pimental was 2-for-3 on the day, adding a double to left field in the fifth.

The Eagles doubled the lead with two more runs in the fourth. Colin Durkin got it started from the nine-hole, lining a lead-off single over the leaping shortstop and then stealing second base to get into scoring position. De La Fe then drilled a double up the middle to send Durkin around third and across the plate. Ezra then supplied a sac-fly RBI that drove De La Fe in.

The Rams’ defense helped minimize the damage, despite a strong offensive showing from the Eagles’ deep lineup. Orangewood had several diving catches, including a 4-6 double-play on a liner the second baseman snared out of the air, and it also threw a runner out at the plate after Christian Scott doubled with a man on second in the fourth.

It was the type of challenge the Rams were looking for when they scheduled the game. Rams manager Scott Hilinski admitted there were a lot of good things they could take away to build on and try to get their stride going towards the ends of the year and into districts.

“We’re a young team and Calvary is obviously a great team coming off a state championship last year,” Hilinski said. “They have some good arms. I don’t think we even saw their number one, but the guys they threw today were good. We’re young so we’ve got to be pretty sound defensively, we’ve got to throw strikes and capitalize on mistakes. They didn’t make many mistakes and they are a well-coached team, so it was a good challenge for us.”

The Eagles’ pitching was in control from the beginning. Senior left-handed starter Patrick Halleran tossed three scoreless innings to earn the win. The southpaw allowed one base runner on a single to Sean McArdle, and he struck out four. Skylar Gonzalez and Cameron Stadler tossed two innings each to close it out in relief.

The defending 4A state champions now have the next few days to practice and prepare for the tough stretch ahead. Friday night Calvary takes on the Trinity Christian Conquerors, in a meeting between the last two 4A state champions as part of the Tournament of Champions.

“It is going to be a tough weekend; we are playing some pretty good teams,” De La Fe said. “We’re hoping we can down there and get three wins and then come back to keep the win streak going and see how far we can get.”

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