Bearcats sweep first round

It is officially playoff time for the Aledo Bearcats baseball team. The district 5-5A champions took the field on the weekend of May 6-7 to take on the Denton Broncos (18-12), and came away with a two game sweep by scores of 6-2 and 9-4.

The Bearcats (23-10) are moving on to the area round where the Burleson Elks (16-13) await. Burleson won both coin flips determining series length and location. Elks head coach Kendall Clark chose a one game playoff that will take place at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 13, at Burleson High School.

“I think it will be a dog fight,” Aledo head coach Chad Barry predicted. “They have one arm that they totally believe in and I think they’re going to ride him as long as they can. My message to the team is going to be the same; ‘Put barrels on balls, work the count, and play clean baseball.’ If we can do those things I think we’ll be all right.”

In game one against Denton, Hunter Rudel took the mound and pitched a gem, going seven full innings, giving up just five hits and striking out five.

Aledo’s bats awoke early as Adrian Guzman doubled to left field, scoring Colton Whitmire. Denton tied the game at one in the third inning, and took a 2-1 lead in the fourth. However, David Jones pulled Aledo back even when he drove in Guzman from second base.

The Bearcats then drove in three more runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to take a 5-2 lead. Guzman came across one more time in the fifth inning, bringing the final score to 6-2 after Rudel closed out the game on the mound.

“In game one you’re usually trying to feel each other out,” Barry said. “After that it’s just about executing, trying to have a good at bat, trying to get hard hit balls and I felt that we did that once we got to the second time through the line up.”

In between games one and two, the Aledo High School prom occurred but the team remained focused.

“They’re mature enough to know that a couple hours of fun wasn’t worth throwing the season away,” Barry remarked. “They had a meeting after the game and Estevan [Flores] told them not to do anything stupid and that we had business to attend to the next morning, and I think they all heeded his advice.”

The Bearcats got off to another fast start in game two. Trace Mazon doubled to lead off the game, and Ethan Jaques doubled him home in the next at-bat. The Broncos tied the game in the bottom of the first, but Aledo exploded in the second inning, scoring four runs including two on a triple by Jaques.

Inning by inning, Denton chipped away at the Bearcat lead, ultimately making it a 5-4 score after five innings. However, Aledo was not about to let the game slip away, and scored four more runs after five and a half innings.

Preston Clark was brought in as pitcher to close out the series and did not allow a run in the final two innings, ultimately completing the sweep.