SINTON — The Boerne Champion baseball team had its best offensive performance of the postseason so far on Thursday in Sinton and tallied 10 runs on its way to a lopsided 10-1 victory over La Joya Palmview.
Champion (32-6-1) and Palmview (26-8-2) met Friday for Game 2 in their best-of-three, third-round series. A third game, if needed, took place 30 minutes after the second game.
Prior to Thursday, the most runs the Chargers had scored in a postseason game was six on three different occasions, but they reached that total by the third inning against Palmview.
Champion smacked the ball around Sinton’s field and collected 10 hits and tallied 2 runs per inning through the first three frames.
After Cal Isley walked in the first, Austin Garritano ripped a triple to score Isley. Garritano came home on a Jaedyn Yamaguchi sac fly, and it was 2-0.
In the second, Blake Ott singled and then Brody Bendele launched one over the left-field fence to bump the lead to 4-0.
After the Lobos recorded the first two outs of the inning in the third, Champion took three straight walks to load the bases. Lyndon Austin drove in Whitehead and Ott with an RBI single and it was 6-0.
Champion pitcher Ethan Coleman took a perfect game into the fourth inning before it was broken up with a couple of singles, but the Lobos stranded both runners on base in that frame.
The Chargers added 2 more runs in the fifth and flirted with a runrule victory, but the game ended up going all seven innings.
In the fifth, Whitehead singled and then Ott doubled to bring in Whitehead. Ott later scored on a Bendele double that just missed clearing the fence for what would have been his second homer of the night, and it was 8-0.
Palmview scratched for its only run in the bottom of the fifth and took advantage of a hit batter, a walk and an RBI single from Jaden Gutierrez to make it 8-1.
Champion closed it out with single runs in the sixth and seventh innings. Isley walked in the sixth and scored on a Yamaguchi double.
In the seventh, Ott tripled and scored on a Bendele ground out for the final run of the game.
Bendele homered, doubled and picked up 4 RBI, Ott almost hit for the cycle and recorded a single, double and triple in that order, while Ott also drove in a run and scored three times. Yamaguchi finished with a double and 2 RBI, while Whitehead and Isley both crossed home plate twice.
Coleman left after six innings on the hill and scattered 3 hits, only walked 1, gave up 1 run and struck out 7 on 95 pitches.
Ott finished on the hill in the seventh and retired the side in order, something the Charger defense did in four of seven frames. Ott induced two ground outs and a fly out to end it.
NOTES: Thursday’s victory was Charger coach Ben Woodchick’s 200th career win.
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