Pleasant Grove takes down crosstown foe Leopards, 5-1

Pleasant Grove got an early lead and never trailed.

The Hawks put up two runs in the second inning and held crosstown rival Liberty-Eylau scoreless through four in what was a mostly competitive game to post a 5-1 win on Thursday at Hawk Field.

Despite the four-run victory, the game—for the most part—was anyone’s to take.

“That’s what we expect anytime we play anyone, especially those guys out there tonight,” Pleasant Grove coach Riley Fincher said. “Anytime you play somebody from your town, you always try to play tough, and that’s what both teams did tonight. We all played tough. We are happy we could come out on top.”

Pleasant Grove’s Nick Voyles pitched 6 1-3 solid innings, while striking out seven.

Marshall Cox got the Hawks on the board first in the second frame with a grounder to shortstop, which brought in Seth Hopkins, who made his way to third after an early Leopard throwing error. Matthew Gilley would later hit a single and be brought home by an Andrew LeGrand double.

Liberty-Eylau starting pitcher Tre Hodge would stop the bleeding with a strikeout to end the inning.

Four of the Hawks’ five runs came with two outs.

“Two-out runs are huge for us, but if you go back and look, we left a lot of guys on base,” Fincher said. “That’s something we got to take care of and capitalize off of, especially early in the game. You have to tip your hat off to Liberty-Eylau because those guys made the right plays and put their pitches where they needed to be when it counted the most.”

Pleasant Grove and the Leopards finished with three errors apiece.

“I know the kids played hard and we made a few mistakes,” LibertyEylau coach Zach Fowler said. “At the end of the day, they made a few more plays at the right time than we did and pitched a little better. But that’s baseball. We have had the problems all year getting off the field, and right now, it feels like the ball is going to the guys who don’t want it. That is something we will address.”

“What Zach (Fowler) is doing over there at Liberty-Eylau, and his coaching staff, you can see the belief in them,” Fincher said. “You can see their aggressive style and are in every game. The style they play, it causes a lot of havoc to other teams.”

Both teams would go scoreless until the fifth inning, where LibertyEylau would avoid a shutout with a run in top of the frame, and the Hawks would score their final three later in the inning.

Marzavin Riles hit an RBI-single to bring home Blake Carter, who reached on a walk. Riles finished 2-for-3 at the plate with two singles for the Leopards.

After a walk and a double play, the Leopards would walk Braden Hlavinka, who later stole second, and Gilley would get his second RBI with a double. LeGrand walked afterwards and Carson Cox brought Gilley in with the Hawks’ second double of the inning.

Cox collected two doubles and a single for Pleasant Grove, and Gilley finished with two singles and a double.