Panthers prevail in nondistrict matchup

O’connor and Clark took a break from their regularly scheduled district baseball programming on Saturday afternoon as the Panthers took down the Cougars 12-10 in a nondistrict battle at the Northside ISD Baseball Fields.

With the two teams fighting for playoff seeding in their respective districts, both squads found Saturday’s game to be beneficial for the final stretch of the season.

O’connor (15-9-2, 9-3 District 29-6A) is a halfgame above Warren for second place in the league standings and one game behind first-place Sotomayor. Clark (11-11, 7-6 District 28-6A) sits in fifth place, a half-game behind

Churchill for the final postseason spot in its district race.

Panthers’ coach Weston Heiligman appreciated the game for keeping his players in rhythm.

“This kind of kept us in a routine,” he said. “That’s the whole reason I scheduled it on our bye week; to kind of keep us in routine where our guys are getting up, moving around, doing everything that we need to do to get prepared for a game like normal.”

The Cougars, who returned to the fields after a 9-3 loss in 28-6A to second-place Johnson on Friday, used the quick turnaround for practice.

“(It was a) fun game, like a tournament-type game,” Clark coach Aldo Valazquez said. “We pitched some pitchers that hadn’t pitched in a while, and it showed. I think we had nine walks and a couple hit by pitches. That’s not good baseball.”

O’connor loaded the bases in its first at-bat, setting the table for right fielder Noah Davila’s tworbi single into left field to claim the early lead.

Clark responded in the top of the second inning with three runs off the Panthers’ miscues to take their only lead. The Cougars held the advantage until the bottom of the third, when O’connor pitcher Marcus Morales’ two-run single grabbed the lead back for the Panthers. A wild pitch brought home another run to extend the lead to 5-3.

With O’connor leading 7-5, the Panthers piled on five runs on four hits in the sixth to break the game open. First baseman Ryan

Mason hit an RBI double on a deep drive into left field, followed by pinch hitter Diego Villarreal notching a run-scoring hit of his own for a 9-5 lead. A sacrifice fly from Davila gave Mason the chance to run home, and catcher Christian Cruz hit a tworun single into left field to bring in Morales and pinch runner Matthew Orta home and make it 12-5.

Clark made it a game again with five runs in the top of the seventh, but the Panthers turned away the threat with three straight outs to walk away with the win.

“I would say competitive sloppy, if that was a term,” Heiligman said of his team’s win. “Obviously with the wind conditions, things got sloppy. They had 10 runs, I think we gave them at least five of those. They gave us a few walks and errors, it was just about who was going to minimize (the damage).”

Since going on a fourgame losing streak a month ago, O’connor has turned things around with six straight wins. The Panthers have outscored opponents 45-22 in that stretch while leading the league with a .281 batting average.

O’connor has games left against Sotomayor and Warren, who both beat the Panthers in the first round of district play. The first will come against the Wildcats, with the matchup taking place at 7:45 p.m. Tuesday at Northside Field No. 1. If they can avenge those losses, O’connor can claim its second straight 29-6A title.

“We came into the year with guys that didn’t have a lot of experience,” Heiligman said. “Now at this point in the year, you’re a veteran and so we got a lot of guys playing with confidence. I love right now where we’re at in the district race, I think we got a great opportunity to go win a district title.”

Clark will next face Churchill at 5 p.m. Tuesday at North East Sports Park in a key matchup between teams vying for a playoff spot.

“I believe we’re getting stronger,” Valazquez said. “If you look at the last few innings from last night’s game, you know we competed hard and came back. And then today’s game, same thing in the seventh inning; we’re competing. We just need to clean up our game.”