Twelve bases on balls keep
the Rangers walking
The Mustangs couldn’t find the pitching that got them to this point of the season along with the clutch hits that they were used to seeing.
Brian Hethcoat pitched 5 2/3 innings, gave up five hits, walked three and struck out five while helping the Clements Rangers (32-7) sweep the best-of- three series with a 4-2 Class 5A Region III Final victory over the Memorial Mustangs Saturday evening at Reckling Park.
“I knew it was going to be hot, I knew I had to battle, I had to stay in the game as long as possible keeping the pitch count down. I did a pretty good job of getting ahead, throwing pitches for strikes letting the defense do the work,” said Clements Pitcher Brian Hethcoat.
With the win the Rangers will faces Corpus Christi Carroll in the state semifinals Friday at 6 p.m. at Dell Diamond in Round Rock, Texas. The winner will advance to the Championship round to meet the winner of Klein/Plano West on Saturday afternoon.
The Rangers advance to the state tournament for the second time in school history.
“It’s a great feeling, we can’t describe the feeling here. We took advantage of some trouble they had on the bump today. Our kids were being patient we were waiting for some good pitches to hit. We got some walks, made some things happen. You know baseball is a weird game. They have a great club and Coach York is an awesome coach. Only sad thing I can say, we both can’t go,” said Clements Coach Israel De Los Santos.
Clements picked up all the run support needed in the bottom of the second inning on five walks and GR Hinsley sacrifice fly to right field.
“We had more hits than them but they had timely hits and we didn’t but we played our hearts out. We came up short, we did all we could,” said Memorial’s Pitcher/OF Harris Rome.
The pitching of Hethcoat coupled with solid defense worked in Clements favor to keep the Mustangs scoreless through the first five innings.
Ben Carl’s walk with the bases loaded pushed across the Mustangs first run before Boomer White’s RBI infield single to third cutting the Clements lead 3-2.
“These eleven seniors that we have on this ball club are just amazing young men and the ride that they were able to take us on and the journey was amazing. We couldn’t get it together today but that’s part of it that’s the game of baseball and Clements has a great club, great coach and I wish them the best,” said Memorial’s Coach York.
The Rangers added an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth when Memorial Pitcher Byron Davis hit Andrews with the bases loaded.
The Mustangs (35-8-1) rendered twelve bases on balls which produced three of the Rangers four runs.
The most memorable season in Memorial’s school history came to an end when Alec Horvath got Nick Glanzman to fly out to right field.
