Spartan boys suffer a near miss in their season opener.
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by Marc Houghton
photo by Ryanne Mollo
The Spartan baseball team played hard to the finish on Monday night, but wasn’t able to come out with the win against the talented 5A Cherry Creek Bruins, losing by a score of 5-4. Although TJ is disappointed to start their season with a loss, they showed a lot of promise, generating some strong offense and holding the dangerous Bruins to only seven hits on the night.
Cherry Creek came out of the gates hitting, as they jumped out to an early 2-0 lead within the first two innings. TJ was making good contact at the plate in the early going, but couldn’t find any gaps in the Creek defense. It took a rally in the fifth and sixth innings to get the boys on the scoreboard, and they made a strong run for a comeback, as they were trailing 5-0 in the fourth inning. The bats came alive for the Spartans in the fifth, but they were only able to post up four runs by the end of the game.
The team was happy to rally late to make it a close game, but they expect to come out hot from the start in their upcoming games. "It took us awhile to get our bats going, but I think we had great pitching and defense, which was what we were most worried about going into the season," said center fielder Kian Jost. Starting pitcher Dylan Smith had a solid performance, pitching a full game and holding Cherry Creek to only four earned runs on seven hits. TJ out-hit the Bruins with ten of their own, but they didn’t start getting hits with runners in scoring position until the last three innings.
The Spartans will come out of this loss with a positive attitude as they move on to play Mountain View on Wednesday at TJ. The team is excited to come out hitting early in the game, something they should have no problem doing with their talent. If they can keep pitching well and playing solid defense along with some strong offense, there’s not many teams in the state that will get the best of them.
