By Marshall Tempest
Reporter
The Apopka Blue Darter baseball team moved to 4-2 on the seasin with a three-game win streak that culminated with a victory over the Olympia Titans, 4-2, on the road on Tuesday, Feb. 25.
The game was a defensive battle through the first four innings. After Apopka scratched out a run in the first, Olympia answered with a run in the second and the game entered the fifth tied 1-1.
Apopka’s Wyatt Jaggers was having a great day on the mound, but Blue Darter batters also struggled against the tricky pitching of Olympia’s Kingston Ebanks.
Olympia took the lead in the bottom of the fifth, grabbing its second run of the night with a sacrifice fly. This was when Apopka’s Cameron Pennock replaced Jaggers to end the inning and the game. Pennock made quick work of the one batter he saw in the fifth to send Apopka back to the plate.
Apopka was quick to get right back in the game, scoring a run at the top of the sixth inning to bring the game back even at 2-2 and set up the decisive seventh inning.
Maddox Stinson raced home on a wild pitch to give Apopka a 3-2 lead in the top of the seventh. After Olympia brought in its fourth pitcher of the day with the bases loaded, another wild pitch allowed Aiden Rieli to score a critical insurance run for the Blue Darters.
In the bottom of the seventh, Pennock slammed the door on Olympia and secured the Blue Darters’ third straight win.
“Do your thing, man. Just do your thing,” head coach of the Apopka Blue Darters Bobby Brewer told me he said to Pennock before he took the mound in the bottom of the seventh. “You got good stuff; all you’ve got to do is trust it, throw it, and we’ll catch it behind you, so it’s all good.”
The team had a batting average of .259 and an on-base percentage of .412 and collected seven hits, four runs, one RBI, and one double. The Darters were nearly perfect in the field again, with just one error and 21 putouts with a .955 fielding percentage. Olympia had two errors and a fielding percentage of .939.
On the mound for Apopka, Jaggers had a great game, allowing six hits, two runs, five strikeouts, a 1.50 ERA, a .333 batting average against, and a .333 on-base percentage after throwing 64 pitches to 18 batters. Pennock also had a fantastic game, earning the win and collecting five strikeouts, walking one batter, and allowing no hits or runs.
“This is a big win for us,” Brewer said after the game. “That’s always a good ball club (Olympia), and their first guy out on the mound really had us. We just couldn’t seem to find that curveball he was throwing with our bats. We missed some pitches that we should have hit, and we didn’t run the bases well in one inning – but these guys don’t quit. They just keep coming.”
Brewer praised his two pitchers in the win, Jaggers and Pennock. He then said that the team has a lot of fight and heart in them. Brewer said his team is not the type just to lay down and accept defeat. When they aren’t in a good situation, they come up with ways to win.
“They got a light of fight in them, a lot of heart, and they aren’t just going to quit when it gets tough,” Brewer said. “You know, we just keep coming even when we screw it up. And I give the guys a lot of credit for that.”
Previous to the win at Olympia, Apopka defeated Freedom (5-1) and Ocoee (10-2). In the game against Freedom, Tyler Spaid, Reef VanKuren, Collin VanFleet and Rieli all logged multiple hits, while senior Connor McAfee picked up the win on the mount.
Against Ocoee, Nicolas Posluszny, VanKuren, VanFleet and Rieli all put up two-hit performances. Junior Logan Page tossed a gem on the mound, striking out 13 and allowing no hits across six shutout innings.
On Wednesday, Feb. 26, Apopka’s win streak came to an end with a 3-0 shutout at the hands of West Orange. The Blue Darter offense managed just three hits, and McAfee took the loss after allowing three runs (one earned) in three innings.
The Apopka Chief is an award-winning weekly newspaper serving the greater Apopka area in Central Florida since 1923.
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