Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Cardinals Win Battle Of Youth
FARMINGTON TAKES DOWN ROGERS HERITAGE 13-3
FARMINGTON — Between Farmington and Rogers Heritage there is a lot of inexperience, but it was the Cardinals making the plays on Monday, March 5, at home.
The Cardinal baseball team rebounded from losses (6-2) to Mayflower and (9-3) to Horatio on opening weekend by beating Rogers Heritage 13-3.
“We went down to Nashville last weekend and we went 0-2,” said Farmington coach Jay Harper. “We didn’t play very good.”
To put it bluntly — Harper didn’t think the overall quality of play resembled baseball. Harper feels challenged with an unprecedented loss of 10 seniors to graduation.
“Seven of our nine starters (this season) never played a varsity game before,” Harper said. “It’s a learning curve for me and for them.”
Heritage starter Dylan Qualls, one of a mere five seniors on a roster that only has two juniors, surrendered 9 runs in the bottom of the first inning after Heritage took a 3-0 lead.
“Dylan didn’t throw very well today,” said Heritage coach Mitch Cameron, who competed frequently against Farmington while coach at Prairie Grove. “He left a lot of balls up on top of the zone. Historically Farmington has been able to hit those when you do that. We found ourselves in a deficit we couldn’t get into.”
Heritage starts two seniors, five sophomores, and two freshmen. Four of those sophomores started as freshmen last season.
“We’ve just got to rebuild, we’ll get better,” Cameron said. “It takes time. It’s a process and with that process comes growing pains. We’ve got to stick together and not worry about what the outside world says about us. The outside world is going to look at our wins and losses and talk about us.”
Farmington leadoff hitter Drew Sturgeon singled and advanced on Will Danenhauer’s bunt. He scored on Eric Hill’s RBI single into left field. Logan Bobak smashed a triple into right center scoring a run from first. Another run came across for the Cardinals when Tate Sutton reached on an error.
Farmington moved in front 4-3 off starting pitcher Kyle Gates’ bat which produced a single into right center field. With the bases loaded Hayden Vanlaningham stroked a 2-run single. A passed ball allowed the runners to advance before Evan Shoffit drew a walk.
Facing Sturgeon again, Qualls looked at a bunt foul, then threw a ball with the next pitch fouled off. Sturgeon connected on a 1-2 pitch blasting a triple for an 8-3 Farmington lead. Later with Bobak batting for the second time in the inning another passed ball led to Farmington’s ninth run.
Qualls threw a pair of scoreless innings before yielding a stand-up double to Bobak in the fourth. Sutton walked, then Farmington third baseman Derek Perona beat a throw to first enabling Bobak to score as the Cardinals went up 10-3. Qualls was replaced by junior Ryan Carlson in the fifth, who drew praise from Cameron.
“Ryan Carlson was great in relief,” Cameron said. “I don’t know that he would have given up any runs without errors. He threw strikes. We had one or two throwing errors and a passed ball that allowed them to score.”
A leadoff walk was followed by a single with both runners scoring on a passed ball in the fifth extending Farmington’s lead to 12-3. Kyle Judd pitched the sixth for Heritage and Farmington loaded the bases. The game ended with an RBI single by Trenton Austin.
For Harper the key is patience, something he endeavors to instill into each Cardinal.
“As patient as we’re getting here I think we’re coming around,” Harper said. “Our goal is to play better each game and go from there.
“We’re trying to do the best we can at the plate. I’m trying to teach the kids to understand counts and where they’re trying to throw it. We got some timely hits tonight, but we’ve still got a long ways to go.”