The California junior varsity Pintos lost 5-3 on April 2 to the Hallsville Indians. Strong pitching by the Pintos was not enough to get the win.
Starting Pintos pitcher Trevor Myers made quick work of the Hallsville batters, striking out eight batters over three innings.
"(Myers) threw the ball over the plate and sped the batters up. Then his breaking stuff was working really well late in the count," Coach Robb Hartman said.
The Pintos jumped out to an early lead to give Myers some sort of cushion. Drake Schlup led off the bottom of the first with a hit and then was scored by a groundout from Scott Staton.
Once again, Myers made the top of the second a clean inning, but the Pintos were not able to scratch anything across in the bottom half of the inning. The Pintos stranded the bases loaded.
A few errors proved costly in the top of the fourth inning as Hallsville tied up the game at 1-1. Spencer Messerli was able to close out the inning though with no further damage.
"We just need to clean up some of the little things. That's something we just need to work on more in practice to get ready for the next game," Hartman said.
A couple of hits in the bottom of the fourth helped to get runners on ahead of Messerli as he drove in two more runs for the Pintos on a double. This lead was not sustained as a couple of huge hits for Hallville led to a four-run fifth inning for the Indians.
The Pintos got a few runners on in the last half inning, but was not able to muster anymore runs. The runs in the top half of the fifth gave Hallsville the edge 5-3.
"We just have to keep focusing on barreling the ball up and putting it in play to force the defense to make more plays," Hartman said.