Boerne Champion maintained its grip on first place in the 26-5A baseball standings after a couple of wins late last week.
The Chargers rallied past New Braunfels last Thursday and then defeated Veterans Memorial on Saturday at home to stand at 10-2 in 26-5A.
Champion (24-3-1 overall) started the week ranked No. 7 in the 5A Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association released on Monday.
The Chargers play two with Wagner this week and visited the Thunderbirds Tuesday before hosting them Friday, 7 p.m.
Vs. New Braunfels
The Chargers were down 3-0 in the first frame thanks to a 3-run home run, but Champion scored the last 4 runs of the game to top the Unicorns, 4-3.
Champion tallied a run in the fifth and added another in the sixth to make it 3-2. In the seventh, Brody Bendele singled to start the inning and moved to second on a sacrifice.
With two outs, Blake Ott singled to bring in Bendele from second to tie it, and the Chargers weren’t done. Zak Al-Arashi singled to move pinch runner Ethan Jensen to second. Lyndon Austin singled to push in Jensen for their first lead of the game at 4-3.
In the bottom half of the seventh inning, Champion starting pitcher Owen Kuhl was lifted and was replaced by reliever Cal Isley.
After a ground out, Isley issued two walks to put the tying and winning runs on the bag. Isley induced the next batter to line out to Charger third baseman Austin Garritano.
After that, Garritano fielded the next grounder hit at him and stepped on the bag to end the game.
Isley picked up the save and gave up 2 walks, no hits or runs on 22 pitches, while Kuhl earned the victory in his six innings of work. Kuhl yielded 6 hits, 3 runs, 3 walks and struck out 3 on 86 pitches.
Vs. Veterans Memorial
The Patriots have only won one baseball game in 26-5A, but they put up a good fight against Champion early on in Saturday afternoon’s contest before the Chargers tamed the Patriots 9-3.
Champion was up 3-0 thanks to single runs through the first 3 innings, with their run in the third frame coming via a Brody Bendele solo homer, but the Patriots tied it with 3 runs in the top of the fourth.
The Chargers buckled down after that and answered with 2 runs in the bottom of the fourth for the 5-3 lead. Owen Kuhl had a big game at the plate and hit two triples. One of those 3-baggers came in the fifth to bring in 2 more runs before Kuhl scored on an error on the play to put the Chargers up 8-3.
Brody Eisert tripled in the sixth and the lead ballooned to 9-3 to basically put it out of reach.
Champion finished with 10 hits, including the two triples from Kuhl, who also doubled, scored 3 runs and collected 4 RBI, while Eisert had the RBI-triple.
Garland Whitehead knocked out 2 singles, Bendele homered, Al-Arashi singled and scored, Lyndon Austin plated 2 runs, Ethan Jensen scored once and Jaedyn Yamaguchi singled.
Blake Ott went 4 innings on the hill and picked up the win on 72 pitches. Ott gave up 4 hits, no earned runs, walked 2 and struck out 3.
Eisert tossed 2 innings and didn’t give up a hit or run and struck out a batter, while Parker Davis threw an inning and also fanned a batter and didn’t yield a hit or a run.
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