Kempner struggles at the plate and on the mound opens floor gates for Mustangs

 
If you care to see un-expectance, you may think well of Cy-Ranch and Kempner, who weren’t expected to be around this late in the playoffs.  Gone are state ranked powers Bellaire, Memorial and Seven Lakes.  In comes the new.
Now in the Class 5A Region III Finals, Grant Slaughter struck out five batters, gave up two hits and Cy-Ranch received a team effort, run ruling the Kempner Cougars by a score of 10-0 in game one of the best-of-three series, Friday night at Cougar Field.
For the first time in the school’s four year history, the Mustangs are one win away from a trip to Round Rock.   Game two is set for Saturday, 2:00 P.M. at Cougar Field.
Mustangs pitching ace Grant Slaughter (8-2) got the win in 4 ½ innings of work, which included five strike outs and two hits.   The hard ball throwing right hander was in control from the outset.  When he wasn’t fanning batters, the fly ball and groundouts worked perfect.  
Dom Taccolini (10-2) struggled to find his location, taking the loss for the Cougars while being chased after 1 1/3 innings.
Every player in Cy-Ranch lineup reached base, whether with the bat, base on balls or hit-by-pitch.  
The Mustangs (30-8) led 1-0 after the first innings and built a 7-0 lead after the second.  Rice signee, short stop Leon Byrd doubled off the wall in left to start things off in the first.  Bryce Stark reached on an infield single, and both Byrd and Stark advanced to second and third, following a wild pitch from Taccolini.  Then Dickerson’s groundout to third base scored Byrd to give Cy-Ranch a 1-0 lead.  Taccolini settled down to retire Dalton Stark on a ground out to second, which could have been much worse as six batters came to the plate.
“We came out like we wanted to, Cy-Ranch short stop Leon Byrd said.  We came out fighting hard.  We put up a lot of runs; Grant did a great job on the mound.  Now we have to keep it going for tomorrow.  They’re a good team (Kempner), but just like baseball, you can have a bad game.  Like they did, we could do the same the next day.  We were expecting a good game but everyone has a bad game.  That’s baseball.  That’s why you play the game.  It was a good game even though the score didn’t show it.
“We came out and swung the bats pretty good”, said Cy-Ranch coach John Pope. We had guys in scoring position, they had pass balls.  They helped us out a little.  Tomorrow is a new day.  It’s back to 0-0 again.  They’re going to come out fighting.”
Keeping the Mustangs off the bases proved to be a tall task for the frustrated Taccolini.  This ultimately rolled over to its offense.  Kempner (30-6-1) had no answer for the Mustangs.
Second year coach, Kempner’s Mark Jones said, “they were the better team tonight (Cy-Ranch).  Of course we don’t feel like our pitcher had his best stuff tonight.  Couple with going against a pretty good ball club over there.  We’ll show up tomorrow and we’ll be ready to go.  I have all the confidence in the world that the best team will go to round rock, whether it’s us or them.  That’s why we play three and we’re going to get after it tomorrow.”
Cy-Ranch added three runs in the bottom third to close out the scoring.
The Mustangs will send undefeated Zach Brosch (7-0) to the mound in game 2 and Kempner will attempt to avoid elimination by countering with Tate Williams who have been impressive on the season with an 8-1 record.   
 
 
 
 

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