South Plantation Improving, But Drops Game 3-2 To Cypress Bay

For South Plantation Manager Trevor Chang, the season is long, and his focus on improving and being ready come playoff time. On Monday night, the Paladins played one of those growing pain games, mounting a seventh inning comeback, before falling to Cypress Bay 3-2.

The game started out as a pitchers duel between the Paladins Caleb Thomas and Lightning’s Carson Cook. Both pitchers cruised through the first three innings, with Cook allowing no hits, and Thomas allowing two.

In the fourth, Cypress bay finally broke through on the scoreboard. John Escobar walked to lead off the inning. After a pop out, Mason McGeehan singled, putting runners on first and second. Then came a pivotal point in the game.

Michael Ramos hit a ground ball, but the Paladins forgot how many out there were, and failed to turn the double play. A walk, and a bases clearing double by Diego Baron gave the Lightning a 3-0 lead.

“We have been playing really strong defense,” said Paladins Manager Trevor Chang. “That was just a situation where one of our better defenders, lost track of the outs, and we didn’t complete the double play. It came back to hurt us later in the inning. It was a tough play, but overall I can’t complain because these guys have been playing great defense all year.”

Even with the mishap, the Paladins made it a game in the seventh. Lucas Decordova and Andrew Gollan had back-to-back singles to start the inning. A ground out scored Decordova with the first run of the game for South Plantation. A passed ball then cut the lead to 3-2.

Weylen Rodriguez then was able to end the threat, by getting the last two Paladins batters to ground out, securing the 3-2 win for Cypress bay.

“We have started to swing the bats pretty good,” said Chang. “Our comeback fell short, but I think even though the record is 1-5, we are starting to get to where we want to be.”

He continued.

“I break the season into three parts, and we just finished the first part. In the second part, we will start to pile up some wins, and then focus on finishing strong in the third part before the playoffs. As long as the hitting comes around as it has the past couple games, our pitching will always be there. So there is plenty of room for optimism about where we are headed.”

The win was much needed for the Lightning, as they entered the game 1-5. They have two more big challenges on the schedule this week, with district rival Western on Tuesday, and Broward #5 Cardinal Gibbons Friday.

South Plantation will look to get hot starting Tuesday against Stranahan, and then a late week match-up with Coral Glades.

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