Bravo, Jarvis, Selzer team
up for 5 home runs
Being No. 1 comes with a price tag, the Houston Christian Mustangs showed why their at the top of the private school polls, with a display of long balls.
The Mustang’s offense exploded for 14 hits, five of which went for home runs. Dartmouth commitment Dustin Selzer and Oklahoma’s CJ Jarvis both hit two a piece. For Selzer it was a team leading 15th on the season.
Jacob Bravo’s two run homer gave the Mustangs a 3-0 lead that they would never give up as they went on to defeat the St. Pius Panthers 9-2 Friday night at Panther Field.
Scoring in every inning, the Mustangs kept the pressure on St. Pius all evening with a series of good defense, clutch pitching and timely hitting.
Selzer got things going with a ringing single to left field. Cody Mathis sacrifice bunt moved Selzer to second before short stop CJ Jarvis singled Selzer home for the early 1-0 lead. Bravo’s two run bomb over the right center field wall increased the lead 3-0.
Konrad Koenig was superb on the mound holding the Panthers to two hits through five inning of work.
“Houston Christian came in with a good game plan, they’ve seen our guys a couple of times and being the good ball players and ball club that Ron puts out every year, they adjusted and we were slow to adjust. They did a lot of things right and we fail to capitalize on their mistakes. We had a chance and some openings but we closed the door on ourselves,” said St. Pius Coach Adam Massiatte.
In the bottom of the first Koenig made quick work of the Panthers retiring the first three batters he faced.
Junior, Andrew Torres led off the second with a double to the center field wall and took third on Clint Petrzelka’s single. Brian Parr hit into a double play but Torres scored on
the fielder’s choice, pushing the Mustangs lead to 4-0.
“We’ve been kind of playing a little passive in the pass couple of weeks, so coach told us to come out and really swing the bats and good things can happen if we swing the bats. We got to stay focused because there’s a lot more baseball ahead of us,” said Houston Christian’s 3rd Baseman Dustin Selzer.
St. Pius biggest threat came in the bottom of the 6th. Standout junior Short Stop Matt Eureste got a base on balls as well as 3rd baseman Kyle Kirk. Freshman Kohl Stewart followed with a single scoring Eureste to give the Panthers their second run on the evening.
“I thought we play hard today but we just couldn’t hit. The pitching was out standing for Houston Christian. We just got to get better focus at the plate and work a little better on defense,” said St. Pius Short Stop Matt Eureste,
