Martin County takes Game 1 against top-seed Bulls in region semi
Stuart Martin County junior Colton Bettencourt was 3-for-4 with a double and an RBI, pacing the Tigers in a 5-3 win in Friday’s first game of the best-of-three Class 6A-Region 2 semifinal. Bettencourt, the Tigers starting catcher, drove in the game’s first run with a single and had a double in the seventh.
By Jarrett Guthrie, Editor
VALRICO – Stuart Martin County junior Colton Bettencourt’s ground ball skipped into left field for a first-inning RBI single and the Tigers attacked early in nearly every inning while holding off Bloomingdale for a 5-3 win in Friday’s Game 1 opener of the best-of-three Class 6A-Region 2 semifinal series.
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Bettencourt paced the Tigers’ hitters with three of his team’s six hits as MCHS got the leadoff man aboard in six-of-seven innings.
“He has been Mr. Consistency all year,” Tigers head coach Brett Hawkins said of Bettencourt. “He keeps his at-bats simple. Gets the bat through the zone and doesn’t try to do too much. He has come up with a lot of big, two-out hits for us down the stretch.”
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Bloomingdale (22-5) was playing catch-up early and often. The Bulls got a quick answer in the home-first as senior Vaughn Osting belted his fourth homer of the year to right. But the momentum turned back to the visitors on the next at-bat as Evan Plusquellic smashed a ball to centerfield, only to have the inning end on a tremendous diving catch by Stone Preston.
Bulls senior Vaughn Osting lets his dugout hear it as he rounds second base after his first-inning solo home run.
The Bulls started the game with a defensive error, which hung an unearned run on senior starting pitcher Javier Navas-Hoyer. The Florida Southern-signed righty would give up a leadoff double to Zane Moody to start the second, but would work out of that jam with an inning-ending out on the bases as Bloomingdale’s double-steal defense kept the early game tied.
Bloomingdale senior RHP Javier Navas-Hoyer took the loss, allowing four runs (one earned) over four innings on the mound.
The Bulls had a chance to take the lead in the second, getting two in scoring position, but Tigers junior lefty Landon Del Tufo (Win, 4.1ip, 2 earned, 4 hits, 1 walk, 1 strikeout) would stop the rally attempt with a strikeout and a catch of a weak pop fly.
Tigers junior LHP Landon Del Tufo earned his ninth win of the season, going 4 1/3 innings and allowing two earned runs.
Martin County (21-6) would take the lead for good in the third as walks and a pair of wild pitches allowed Grady Messner to score the second of his three runs in the win. Bettencourt would again be in the middle of that action, singling to centerfield to move Messner into scoring position.
“I knew they were going to throw strikes and after my first at-bat I only got one fastball,” said Bettencourt, who also had a leadoff double in the seventh. “I knew they would spin it a lot, so early in counts I was looking for that slider and I got it twice and got two hits off of it.”
“We didn’t do a very good job of, when we got the momentum, of holding the momentum,” Bulls head coach Kris Wilken said. “Kudos to (Martin County) for getting momentum back.”
Tigers senior Grady Messner scores one of his three runs in the game.
Two more walks from Navas-Hoyer proved costly as two errors on Bulls second baseman Cesar Campos extended the Tigers lead by two more runs, and ended the starting pitcher’s night after four complete, one earned run on three hits, four walks, and with two strikeouts.
“We knew we had to be aggressive swinging the bats and that was our game plan coming into this series,” Hawkins said. “Get ready to hit first pitch, take advantage of any mistakes because (Bloomingdale) is an outstanding team. We knew they were going to score runs, so we had to score runs any way we could.”
As the ball skips into shallow centerfield, Zach Stern makes a turn to head to the plate to score a Martin County run in the fourth inning.
After the game, Wilken talked about giving the Tigers too many uncontested opportunities.
“We felt like if we didn’t give them free opportunities we were going to have a pretty good chance,” Wilken said. “But we had five walks, not counting my intentional walk, three errors and one hit-by-pitch, so that wasn’t exactly the game plan.”
Bulls junior Mason Johnson was hit by a pitch to start the fifth, stole second and slides into third on an error. He would score on Vaughn Osting’s RBI groundball a few pitches later.
Payton Jennings led off the home-fourth with a single and scored on an RBI single to right by Campos, and Osting would ground a ball to second base to score the Bulls final run in the fifth, but Bloomingdale wasn’t able to get any more, despite loading the bases as Tigers reliever Ethan Chan got a strikeout and fielded a comebacker to end the fifth-inning rally.
Bulls senior Payton Jennings had an impressive defensive showing at first base, making five catches on pop flies for outs.
Jennings was a bright spot for the Bulls defensively, coming up with five fly-ball outs from first base including a great over-the-shoulder catch in foul territory.
Bloomingdale senior RHP Eli Edwards
Senior Eli Edwards held the Tigers to one run over his three innings of relief, while allowing three hits a walk, and had four strikeouts.
“Eli giving us some good innings there was huge,” Wilken said. “… he kept us in this game, gave us a lot of innings and we have a lot of (pitching) options (tomorrow) because of it.”
Martin County’s Frankie Brancaleone led off the sixth with a triple and scored the game’s final run.
Martin County junior Frankie Brancaleone smashed a triple to right to start the sixth and scored the final run of the game on a Brennan Jones sac fly.
John Thornton IV earned the save, working the final two hitless innings, allowing just on walk.
Bettencourt was pleased to get the early advantage in the best-of-three series.
“That’s the most important thing out of all of this – you win the first game and they have to come beat you,” he said. “They got to beat the first day, so even if they beat us (in Game 2) they still have to get us in a third game, and I hope we can come out on top.”
Tigers RHP reliever John Thornton IV
Bloomingdale will need to win two games on Saturday for a chance to continue on in an attempt to claim a third-consecutive region title – and the Bulls have faced this scenario before in last year’s region final series, dropping its opening game to Viera before winning both the next day. The Bulls will turn to the East Tennessee State signed Osting on the bump for Game 2, with Indian River State College signee Luke Long slated to start Game 3 should the Bulls force it.
“It’s baseball,” Wilken said, “you don’t hit the panic button. We are giving the ball to Vaughn Osting tomorrow, if that doesn’t work for us, then nothing was going to work for us. He’s been really good all year.”
Hawkins said Martin County will go with Zane Moody (3-0, 0.44 ERA, 23 strikeouts) on the mound for Game 2, which is scheduled for a 1 p.m. start at Bloomingdale on Saturday.
⚾ Class 6A – Region 2 Semifinal – Game 1 ⚾
Stuart Martin County 5
Bloomingdale 3
M 101|201|0 – |5|6|2
B 100|110|0 – |3|5|3
W – Del Tufo (9-1); L – Navas-Hoyer (5-1); S – Thornton (1)
2B – Bettencourt, Moody (M); Santiago (B); 3B – Brancaleone (M); HR – Osting (B). Records – M (21-6); B (22-5).
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Martin County head coach Brett Hawkins in the pregame plate meeting.
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Bulls senior RHP Javi Navas-Hoyer
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Tigers leadoff Grady Messner reached on a two-base error in the first and then stole third base before scoring the opening run of the game.
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MCHS junior Colton Bettencourt hit a two-out RBI single to left in the first inning.
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Tigers LF John Thornton IV catches a fly ball.
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Martin County starting pitcher Landon Del Tufo delivers a first-inning pitch.
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Vaughn Osting watches his home run ball fly out to right-center field.
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Then goes up for a forearm smash with Bulls C Braxton Wilken.
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JJ Santiago doubled on this ball in the second inning …
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… and welcomes the cheers from the home dugout.
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Tigers 3B Zach Stern throws for an out in the third inning.
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MCHS SS Brennan Jones fires across the diamond for an out.
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Bulls junior backstop Braxton Wilken catches a foul ball.
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Payton Jennings hit a hard ground ball through he right side for a leadoff single in the fourth.
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Tigers 1B Preston Sullivan waits on a throw.
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One of a handful of strong defensive plays made by Bulls senior 1B Payton Jennings.
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Mason Johnson swipes second base for the Bulls.
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Vaughn Osting went down for a pitch and pushes it the other way to drive in his second run of the game. He’d also reach on an error on this ground ball.
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While Mason Johnson trots home to score in the fifth.
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Vaughn Osting slides into third on an Evan Plusquellic single.
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Evan Plusquellic celebrates his single in the fifth.
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Frankie Brancaleone’s glasses take a jump up his forehead as he slides safely into third base on a leadoff triple in the sixth.
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Tigers SS Grady Messner drifts into shallow leftfield for a fly ball catch.
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The final of Colton Bettencourt’s three hits – a leadoff double down the right field line in the seventh.
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Zach Stern pulled his hands on an inside pitch sending it for a single past third base in the seventh inning.
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Eli Edwards is fired up after leaving the bases loaded in the seventh.
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Tigers C Colton Bettencourt catches a ball in foul territory in the seventh.
