The Marble Falls High School baseball team defeated Burnet 9-4 March 11 to begin District 24-4A play.
“I thought that’s the first game where we played well in all three phrases,” head coach Tyler Porter said. “We hit better than we have all year, although it’s been getting better.”
The Mustangs (1-0) set the tone immediately behind the pitching of sophomore John Alan Whittle. He forced the first batter to fly out to left field and struck out the next two batters then followed that by forcing the next batter he faced in the second inning to ground out. After he hit a batter, he struck out the next one and forced the final batter to ground out.
Then Marble Falls went to work offensively in the second inning.
Sophomore Owen Nash led off with a double that fell just fair in right field. An error on a bunt allowed sophomore Casey Layton to reach base and sent Nash home. After a strikeout, freshman Braxton Dicken and sophomore Grant Carer each drew walks. Another error put freshman Cade Briseno on first and scored Layton. Lead-off batter Canon Cochran, a junior, hit a 2 RBI single, while Whittle helped his own cause by getting on base and scored one. Freshman Crawford Mattox hit a 2 RBI double to left-center field and Nash ended the scoring with a RBI single.
By the end the Mustangs led 7-0, all unearned runs.
“(Bunting) typically from an offensive strategy standpoint, I’m not a big fan of giving up outs (for runs), but we’ve kind of adjusted something,” Porter said. “Layton put down a bunt, put pressure on them, and the kid threw it to first base.
That’s when it all started, so one of the bunts caused some chaos. And then our kids accomplished (the rest by) putting barrels on balls. But the kid walked a few that inning, so it was just kind of how baseball goes sometimes.”
Meanwhile, Marble Falls didn’t let up defensively. The Mustangs made every routine out on every routine play and a couple that even surprised their coach. That was what happened to junior right fielder Atreus Machacek. Porter said he thought the second hit was going to be a home run. Instead, Machacek got to it for the out.
“It’s huge,” he said. “They barreled up, and he ran those suckers down. It was impressive. The first one was a good catch, and the second one I didn’t think he was going to get to it. He got under it.”
Whittle mixed up his pitches and kept the Bulldogs at bay. He got ahead in the pitch count, which was the key to success and made sure Burnet didn’t get a run off him in the 5 2/3 innings he pitched. Sophomore Sean Smith took over the final 1 1/3 innings.
Porter summed up Whittle’s performance in three words.
“He’s a dude,” he said. “It’s important the team have a guy who goes up there and gets ahead and makes something happen. And there’s no way to start a game worse than walk after walk. When the guy works fast and throws strikes, it’s fun to play defense behind him.”
The Mustangs added two more runs, while the Bulldogs scored four runs in their final four outs.
Most coaches, including Porter, say that hitting is contagious.
“They did a great job,” he said. “And one of the lines we use, which isn’t unique, is you get the line moving and you keep the line moving. The whole mentality we’re trying to preach to them is ‘hey, just do your job. Keep the line moving.’ We had some fast kids who got some infield singles out of it, so they kept the line moving.”
Game two will be played at Burnet’s Bulldog Diamonds at 7 p.m. Friday, March 14.
The Mustangs welcome Georgetown High in a non-district contest at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 15.
Marble Falls travels to play at Georgetown Gateway at 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 18, and welcomes the Gators at 2 p.m. Thursday, March 20, in district play.
Jennifer Fierro publishes reports about area youth athletic events on her website TexasChalk-Talk.com. To send her a note, email fierrojenni [email protected]
