Bridge City and Orangefield move into first place

This begins the third week of district action for the teams in District 19-4A. The Bridge City Cardinals have won their first four games to claim first place in the standings.

Bridge City has swept its first two district opponents starting with taking two from the Silsbee Tigers on March 12 and March 16. Last week the Cardinals grabbed two from their cross-county rivals the Little Cypress Mauriceville Bears.

The Cardinals and the Bears faced off on Tuesday, March 19, at Chuck Young Field in Bridge City. The contest was a pitching duel that went extra innings before Bridge City prevailed 2-1 in the tenth inning.

Owen Tucker was the first of five pitchers used by Bridge City, and Landon Richards was the LCM starting pitcher. The game was scoreless until the fourth inning when the two teams scored one run apiece to keep the score tied.

Three straight innings beginning with the fifth the Cardinals got a runner as far as second base twice with only one out. Richards wriggled out of the jams in the fifth and sixth before his reliever Jacob Scheiderer escaped the third time in the seventh for Little Cypress Mauriceville.

The Bears had their chances too as Richards doubled with one out in the seventh but Max Pachar retired the next two LCM batters including one by a strikeout. Parker Seago singled and Parker Freeman walked to put runners at first and second in the eighth before Cardinal pitcher Austin Frederick recorded a strikeout on a full count pitch to retire Little Cypress Mauriceville in the top of the eighth.

Having some control issues Frederick reached a full count to five straight Bear batters in the eighth and ninth innings resulting in three bases on balls over his inning and two thirds on the mound. When it counted though Austin got the job done yielding no runs and striking out three.

Frederick led off the tenth for Bridge City with a grounder in the hole to the left side that Bear shortstop Seago fielded but could not get the throw to first in time to record the out. Landon Reeves was hit by a pitch to put Cardinals at first and second with no outs.

LCM pitcher Scheiderer retired the next two Cardinals on an infield popup and with his fourth strikeout since coming in to pitch with one out in the seventh. Bridge City's CJ Riojas who knocked in the first Cardinal run back in the fourth did the honors again ripping a low liner just inside of third base that scored Frederick with the winning run from second.

Aidyn Mulhollan pitched the tenth inning for Bridge City and got credit for the win. "We threw five Cardinals tonight. We ended up with five arms, and each one of them did a great job," Cardinal Coach Chad Landry commented after the win.

The two teams shifted to Don Gibbens Field on Friday, and Bridge City got a strong pitching performance from Landon Reeves in the 13-1 victory. John Van Huis went three for three with two runs batted in, and Gavin Bodin got two hits to drive in three Cardinals.

The West Orange-Stark Mustangs lost twice to the Lumberton Raiders last week. The Raiders won at home 9-3 on Tuesday after the Mustangs took the lead in the top of the first inning scoring two runs with two out.

Will Lee and Blade Williams scored the Mustangs' runs. Christian Anderson and Grayson Gregory had runs batted in.

Lumberton took the second game 6-1 on Friday, March 22, at Ronnie Anderson Park. Noah Robles, Cortez Robertson, Lee, and Anderson had hits for West Orange-Stark with Anderson driving in the lone Mustang run against the Raiders' pitcher Roman Ardoin. Robles pitched a complete game for WOS giving up just two earned runs in seven innings.

The Bridge Cardinals have their bye this week and will play a non-district game with St. Louis Louisiana on Wednesday. The Cardinals' next district games will be Tuesday, April 2, at Vidor and at home on Friday, April 5, against the Pirates.

The Little Cypress Mauriceville Bears were looking for their first win in district on Tuesday, March 26, at home against the Vidor Pirates. The Bears and the Pirates play Thursday, March 28, in Vidor.

The West Orange-Stark Mustangs play Jasper twice this week. Tuesday's game was at Ronnie Anderson Park while on Thursday the Mustangs and the Bulldogs play at Jasper.

The Orangefield Bobcat took possession of first place in District 21-3A after winning their two games last week. Orangefield has a record of 4-1 in district after losing the district opener 3-2 to Kirbyville on March 5.

This past Friday Orangefield shutout Hardin 8-0 behind the shutout pitching of Brycen Tait and Garrett Rawls. Tait went five and two third innings to get the win with eight strikeouts, and Rawls got the last four outs striking out the final Hardin batter in the seventh.

The Bobcats tallied a pair of runs in four different innings taking the lead in the second later adding runs in the third, fourth, and sixth innings. Camden Fountain and Matthew Johnson began the initial rally with base hits.

Logan Cheek walked and Cameron Dearing doubled down the leftfield line leading to the two runs in the third. In the fourth inning Mason Houghton reached base on a hard liner to third before Cheek and Dearing walked to load the bases. Caleb Fregia hit a sacrifice fly to bring home Houghton, and Cheek scored to make it 6-0 on a Hardin error.

A light rain blew through the fifth and sixth innings. The Bobcats tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the sixth to finish the scoring.

"We're starting to put some innings together and not leaving people on base. That was our big thing early in the season. We'd get people on and just couldn't get them in which made it harder on ourselves. We're doing a better job with that," Coach Tim Erickson of the Bobcats analyzed.

Earlier last week the Bobcats bombed Buna 18-3 on Tuesday. Logan Cheek, Caleb Fregia, and Matthew Johnson each collected three hits. Camden Fountain had a double and drove in four runs for Orangefield. Carson Gonzales started and went two and two third innings before being relieved by Kaleb Menard who allowed one run in the final three and a third innings.

This week the Bobcats closeout the first half of district competition against two of the top teams in District 21-3A. Orangefield played at home on Tuesday against Kountze, and will face Anahuac at Paul Cormier Field on Thursday.