 | | The Lamar Mustangs faced Friendswood in Game 1 of the Region III-4A championship series at Cougar Field in Houston. Friendswood won the game 4-3. (Photo courtesy of Troy Taormina)
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| HOUSTON - Jim Van Scoyoc taught that 80 percent of baseball was defense.
In the 2007 movie “The Final Season,” Van Scoyoc (Powers Boothe), the coach of Norway (Iowa) High School's baseball team, tells his assistant coach about his ideas on defensive play being an integral part of the game. Van Scoyoc went on to win 19 state championships.
But Lamar Consolidated players and coaches don't need to watch a movie to know how much defense affects outcomes. Thursday night's Class 4A, Region III finals Game 1 between Lamar-Friendswood at Cougar Field at the University of Houston served as a good example as to why.
Lamar lost 4-3 in a contest in which Lamar committed three errors in innings in which Friendswood scored single runs. While Lamar struggled at the plate and got just four hits on the evening against Friendswood pitcher Stefan Myers, the errors figured prominently in the final score.
“It's always the difference in the playoff games - that's it,” Lamar coach Greg Kobza said about the errors. “It boils down to who makes the least errors. I'm not ever going to fault the kid for going hard and trying to make a play. In the first inning, we made a boo-boo that led to a run and later in the ball game we made an error in the outfield that led to a big run. I'm not never going to fault the physical mistakes. Mentally, we were fine ... We tried to do extraordinary things tonight and it didn't work out.”
Lamar faces an elimination game at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Cougar Field. Game 3, if necessary, will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at Cougar Field. The winner of the series plays in the 4A state tournament next week at Dell Diamond in Round Rock.
In the bottom of the first inning, a throwing error by Lamar third baseman Ryan Haas allowed a runner to score from second, giving Friendswood a 1-0 lead. In the third inning, Lamar starting pitcher Brady Rodgers made an errant throw on a pickoff move to second, allowing Friendswood pinch runner Jesse Flores to advance to third. He eventually scored on an RBI single by Myers, putting Friendswood ahead 2-1. In the fifth inning, Rodgers retired the first two batters but then gave up a single to Myers. Friendswood cleanup hitter Austin Fitzpatrick then singled to center, where the ball was misplayed by Cody Robinson. Right fielder Cody Abraham backed up Robinson and made an offline throw to home, allowing a run to score and giving Friendswood a 3-1 lead.
“We tell our kids if they hold down the mistakes out there on the field, it's going to help you,” Friendswood coach Charlie Taylor said about the errors.
Friendswood added an insurance run in the sixth on a two-out, RBI single by Matt McLaren. The run became necessary after Lamar scored two runs in the top of the seventh on an RBI double by Haas and an RBI single by Abraham, who eventually stole second. However, he was stranded there when Brandon Hollek struck out to end the game. Lamar slugger Randal Grichuk, who was hitless on the night, was on deck.
Lamar scored its first run of the evening on a bases-loaded walk by Eli Sepulveda in the second inning. It was the only run Lamar would score in an inning in which it had the bases loaded and no outs. Myers struck out Haas and Cameron Blinka in the inning, and Myers ended the inning after the Sepulveda walk when he got Abraham to fly out to left.
Myers was a definite factor Thursday.
“He held us to four stinking hits,” Kobza said. “We had our chance there early in the game. We had bases loaded and nobody out and we only score one run. That's just a lack of putting the ball in play and just not coming up with the big-time hit when we needed it. We battled there in the end, but it wasn't enough.”
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