Bryan (6-12-1, 2-7) had to use a backup battery because senior starting pitcher Tyler Cain came down with the flu on the heels of sophomore catcher Reid Russ possibly tearing his posterior cruciate ligament in Thursday’s practice.
Bryan’s make-shift lineup looked good early as the Vikings grabbed a 2-0 lead, but Cy-Park scored two runs in the third, two more in the fourth and three in the fifth for a 7-2 lead. The Tigers had six hits and four sacrifice bunts that all led to runs, but Bryan also had four errors along with four wild pitches and a passed ball.
Bryan overcame it all by scoring eight unanswered runs on the strength of seven hits and a surprising strong relief performance by Andre DeJesus.
The Vikings tied the game at 7 with five runs in a wild fifth inning.
Hunter Zaragoza and Michael Barber opened the rally with hard-hit singles. Barber’s line drive bounced by the right fielder for a two-base error, scoring Zaragoza. Logan Freeman’s sacrifice fly cut Cy-Park’s lead to 7-4. Bryan loaded the bases on Tanner Teal’s single, Matt Valerius’ walk and Gavin Estrada’s bloop single to right, and when the ball bounced by the right fielder on Estrada’s hit, the lead runners scored and Estrada raced to third on the second two-base error of the inning. Those errors gave Bryan a total of 10 bases for the frame. Michael Hernandez followed with a game-tying sacrifice fly.
“I just had to talk to [my teammates] and calm they down,” Zaragoza said. “The guys were getting frustrated. We were down 7-2. I told them not to look at the scoreboard, just compete, compete until the last out.”
Bryan’s bats put away the game in the sixth. Noah Garcia lined a double down the third-base line to start the frame, and Zaragoza and Barber each followed with RBI doubles. Barber came around to score on a pair of wild pitches.
“It was just a great job the last few innings,” Bryan coach James Dillard said. “That’s the thing about this team that’s different than a lot of other teams I’ve coached: This team has no quit in ‘em. We’re going to compete until the 21st out. You can’t coach that. I mean, those guys show up, they punch the clock every day. That’s hard to coach, but I’m proud of their effort.”
Sophomore right-hander DeJesus, a call-up from the JV team, made Bryan’s eight unanswered runs hold up by retiring the last seven batters in order.
“That’s his first time in a varsity uniform,” Dillard said. “We’re short of pitchers. We had [freshman Mason Ruiz] have season-ending surgery. He broke his hand last week. We gave Andre a shot, and he was able to come in and throw strikes, and that’s going to keep him around.”
Bryan, which won 12-1 at Cy-Park (2-17, 1-8) on Tuesday, won back-to-back games for the first time this season.
“It was huge,” Dillard said. “You can say as a coach [losing] doesn’t hurt you. It doesn’t hurt you, but kids need wins to feel good about themselves when they walk away from the ballpark. We’ve been so close in some other ballgames. We just haven’t finished it. For us to sweep a week, that’s huge for these guys.”
Zaragoza, who went 3 for 4 at the plate, had a leadoff triple to help Bryan take a 2-0 lead, but the junior shortstop also had an error in the middle innings when things fell apart.
“I think we thought we’d just come here and we’re just going to blow past them,” Zaragoza said. “But for us, we’re not a very big power-hitting team, so we just have to compete to the last out.”
Bryan 10, Cypress Park 7
Cy-Park 002 230 0 — 7 7 4
Bryan 110 053 x — 10 9 4
Gavin Estrada, Andre DeJesus (4) and David Parks. Isaiah Haynes, Ricardo Ruiz (4) and Marc Ma... Click here to read full article
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