OC Baseball: Bats swinging, balls flying

On Tuesday the Bridge City Cardinals remained undefeated in Dist. 21-3A downing the Hamshire-Fannet Longhorns 8-1 with Jake Lemoine getting the win on the hill. The Orangefield Bobcats defeated the Hardin-Jefferson Hawks 10-8. Meanwhile the West Orange-Stark Mustangs fell to the Silsbee Tigers 17-1. Bridge City and Silsbee remain undefeated and tied for first place in Dist. 21-3A with 3-0 records.

Coming up this week Bridge City travels to Orangefield, West Orange-Stark hosts Hardin-Jefferson and Little Cypress-Mauriceville host Lumberton- all on Thursday.

To roundup hometown baseball this past week the Orangefield’s Bobcats met the Mustangs of WOS Friday night and when the dust settled, the Bobcats had evened the district standings of the two teams when they handed the Mustangs a 4-3 loss.

Orangefield Bobcat Dustin Selman powered an RBI hit in the fifth inning that would prove to be the big play to give the ‘Cats the win. Westin Crain was the winning pitcher for the Bobcats. He dominated the mound for the full seven innings and only allowed four hits. He also struck out two batters and allowed five walks.

Brandon Smith went 2-3 at the plate and scored one run. Selman hit 1-2.

Jakob Brown, Luke Johnson and Selman each scored a run for the ‘Cats.

Friday night saw the Bridge City game hosting the Silsbee Tigers postponed when a transformer malfunctioned and knocked out the lighting for the field. The Dist. 21-3A contest has been rescheduled for April 20.

Up a notch in the District 20-4A play, the PNG Indians fought off the LCM Bears and won the game with a 5-4 score. The win gave district leadership to the Indians by giving them a 5-0 record and putting the Bears at 4-1.

PNG was down 3-0 when they scored five runs in the top of the fifth inning. The inning cost the Bears their control of the game. The Indians took advantage of two errors by the Bears and three walks by their pitchers. The Indians also got two of their three hits in that inning.

Alex Blem was responsible for two runs with his RBI in the second inning. Blem went 3-3 at the plate in the game. Reid Fults drew a walk and was brought home by Blem’s RBI. In the bottom of the seventh inning, Casey Burleigh slammed a home run to give the Bears their fourth and last run.

Saturday night the Orangefield Bobcats met the Hamshire-Fannett Longhorns, dodged the horns and came off the field with an 8-6 win.

The Bobcats scored early in the game, three runs in the first, two in the second, and one in the fourth. The Longhorns went scoreless in the first three innings, scored once in the fourth and had a big inning in the seventh when they scored five runs to tie the game. Orangefield scored twice in the eighth inning, held the home team Longhorns scoreless and took the win.