Dawgs fall to Vikings 3-1, now tied for fourth place

By BEN PETET 

Cove Leader-Press 

On Friday night the Bryan baseball team beat the Copperas Cove baseball team 3-1 in a district 12-6a game. 

With the victory the Vikings claimed the district title and the number-one seed from the district for the playoffs. 

With the loss, the Dawgs fell into a tie with Killeen High for fourth place. The top four schools advance to the playoffs. With two games remaining in district play, only Bryan and Belton have clinched a playoff spot, with Belton claiming the number-two seed.

In the 1st inning, David Cimmino was on the mound for the Dawgs and got two quick outs. The Vikings then started a two-out rally with three straight singles that plated two runs. After singles by Mason Ruiz and Chance Crawford, Hunter Harlin had a 2-RBI single to left field to stake Bryan to a two-run lead after the top half of the inning. Eric Perez started on the mound for the Vikings and had a 1-2-3 inning to close out the 1st inning with the Vikings ahead 2-0.

The Dawgs held the Vikings scoreless in the top half of the 2nd inning to keep the score at 2-0. In the home half of the 2nd inning, Dominick Vasquez had a one-out walk and scored on John Garcia Leon’s  bases-loaded walk to make the score 2-1 Bryan after two innings.

Cimmino had 1-2-3 3rd and 4th innings to keep the Vikings from scoring. The Dawgs had runners at 3rd base in both the 3rd and 4th innings but could not score either inning keeping the score at 2-1 after four innings.

Ben Torres led off the 5th inning with a walk for the Vikings. Torres moved to 2nd base on a walk by Kyle Turner and both runners moved up a base on a wild pitch. With runners at 3rd and 2nd base, Ruiz hit a SAC fly to deep right field to score Torres and extend the lead to 3-1 for the Vikings. In the home half of the 5th inning, Gabe Chapman led off with a walk and moved to 2nd base on a Vasquez single to right field. The Vikings changed pitchers and Kaleb Gott came in and retired the next two batters to end the threat.

In the top of the 6th inning. Travis Sanders came on to pitch and worked around an error to hold Bryan scoreless in the top half of the inning. In the home half of the 6th inning Manuel Chaco lead off with a hit by pitch to put a runner at 1st base. 

Courtesy runner Ben Izquierdo came in to run for the catcher Chaco and moved to second base on a wild pitch. With two outs the Vikings issued an intentional walk to Sanders putting runners on 2nd and 1st bases with Chapman coming to the plate. 

The Vikings brought in their third pitcher of the night when Ryan Hill came on to pitch. After a throw back from the catcher got away from Hill, Izquierdo went to third base leaving runners at the corners for the Dawgs. 

When Hill was on the rubber to pitch Sanders started walking toward 2nd base. This confused Hill but he did step off the rubber back toward 2nd base to keep from having a balk called. 

Hill ran towards Sanders keeping an eye on Izquierdo on third base, forcing Sanders to go to 2nd base creating runners at third and second base.

The next pitch was in the dirt and bounced behind the Viking catcher Kyle Kubichek. Izquierdo broke for home but Kubichek was able to get the ball and dive back to the plate to just tag Izquierdo out before he could touch the plate for the third out of the inning keeping the score 3-1 for the Vikings.

Both Sanders and Hill pitched a 1-2-3 seventh inning to make the final score 3-1 in favor of Bryan.

On Tuesday, the Dawgs go to Harker Heights and Bryan is at Ellison. The district standings are Bryan 1st (12-0), Belton 2nd (10-2), Harker Heights 3rd (7-5), Copperas Cove and Killeen 4th (6-6), Temple 6th (5-7), Ellison and Shoemaker 7th (1-11). 

The Dawgs’ next home game will be Friday April 29th hosting Temple to close out the regular season.