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Baseball: Land O' Lakes Still Perfect In District

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By RICK HARMON

Tribune correspondent

Published: March 10, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - In a battle of Class 5A-District 7 aces, Land O' Lakes' Jason Garcia was on. River Ridge's Corey Lapp was not.

The result was a 13-run, 17-hit performance by the Gators in a 13-1, 5-inniing win against the Royal Knights on Tuesday at Jim Valentine Athletic Complex to keep Land O' Lakes undefeated in district play.

Both pitchers entered the game with 3-0 records. Garcia had a 1.81 ERA and 21 strikeouts while Lapp had a 0.41 ERA and 22 strikeouts. Garcia was able to battle through some shaky fielding but Lapp couldn't overcome the Gators big bats.

Land O' Lakes (6-1, 4-0 5A-7) sent 13 batters to the plate in the third inning, scoring 9 runs on 9 hits and knocked Lapp out of the game.

After Austin Costa led off the inning with a single and J.J. Downum sacrificed him to second, the Gators got consecutive hits from Curt Hilgenberg (single), Nick Pardo (single, RBI), Alex Pratt (single, RBI), Austin Aubuchon (single, RBI), David Perez (single) and Alex Estes (double, 2 RBI). Jason Carrier, the ninth batter of the inning, walked and Costa doubled in two in his second at-bat of the inning. Downum grounded out to score Carrier and Hilgenberg followed with a RBI double to end Lapp's night.

"We swung the bats well tonight," said Land O' Lakes manager Calvin Baisley. "We had a lot of good at-bats … a lot of tough at-bats with two strikes. I was very happy with our offense. I was very happy with our pitcher. We should have been out of there a lot quicker. We had some errors."

Garcia (4-0) scattered three hits in five innings and struck out 9 but faced 24 batters and threw 99 pitches, in part because of three Gators errors.

"It wasn't [Garcia's] fault," Baisley said. "He was doing his job. We got to get him out of there. We need him to be able to pitch more than five innings."

River Ridge (5-4, 2-2 5A-7) scored its only run in the fourth inning when Tommy Peterson reached on an error, moved to second when Steve Simon walked and scored when Chris Ruggiero beat out an infield single and the throw to first was wild and went down the right-field line.

The Gators sent 9 batters to the plate in the fifth, scoring 4 more runs off reliever Mike Sherman. Downum drew a one-out walk, went to second on a Hilgenberg single and Pardo singled to load the bases. Pratt plated Downum with a sacrifice fly to center and Aubuchon singled to score Hilgenberg. Pardo and Aubuchon, who had moved up a base on the throw home, both scored on a fielding error off the bat of pinch hitter Patrick Dudkiewicz.

"As good as [Lapp] has been in his first three games, he just didn't locate his pitches," said River Ridge manager Jack Homko. "[Land O' Lakes] is a good team and we knew that going in. If you can't hit your spots, they're going to hit the ball."

Land O' Lakes 009 04 – 13 17 3
River Ridge 000 10 – 1 3 1

W – Garcia (4-0). L – Lapp (3-1). 2B – Estes, Costa, Hilgenberg, Nipper (L); Custodio (R). R – L (6-1, 4-0 5A-7, 5-0 Sunshine Athletic Conference; R – 5-4, 2-2 5A-7, 3-1 SAC.

Correspondent Rick Harmon can be reached at tampabaystringer@gmail.com.

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