The second game brought much more immediate offense when Evan Taylor sent a grounder up the gap with two on and one out in the top of the first, putting Spain Park up 1-0.<\/p>\n
After stranding a two-out triple by Barrett Price in the second, the Jags doubled their lead when Johnson scored off an error. A hit batter followed before Will Jacobsen hit an RBI single that busted open the game.<\/p>\n
Bounds scored on an error ahead of a walk, and Ryne Paquette laid down a bunt single to take the lead to 5-0. Two batters later, Connor Greb launched a ball to right that scored two runs for the 8-0 lead.<\/p>\n
That effectively shut down the game, especially in the face of Hudson Franks\u2019 shutout start. He took a no-hitter into the fourth inning before ending his day with eight strikeouts against one hit and three walks in four shutout innings.<\/p>\n
Smith opted to go into the bullpen to keep Brodie Smith and Nathan Byrd warm in case they\u2019re needed in future weeks. Both kept the shutout alive even as Byrd worked around three hits to load up the bases in the sixth.<\/p>\n
A sacrifice fly on a deep fly ball by Price in the fifth extended the lead to 9-0, but one final rally remained in the sixth. After loading up the bases on a hit batter, single and walk, Spain Park scored on five-straight plays.<\/p>\n
First came three-straight RBI singles from Jacobsen, Brodie Bragg and Paquette. That chased the Wildcats starter, but the no-out cushion allowed the Jags to score two more runs even as they hit into three-straight groundouts, setting the stage for the 14-0 run-rule win.<\/p>\n
Paquette finished 3-for-4 with two RBI and two runs while Jacobsen was 2-for-4 with two RBI and two runs. Greb racked up three RBI while going 1-for-3 with a walk.<\/p>\n
So what was the difference between two runs in Game 1 and 14 in Game 2? Smith said pitching played a factor, tipping his cap to Knight of Benjamin Russell, but he also liked his team\u2019s situational hitting better.<\/p>\n
He thought the offense was much more scattered in Game 1, leading them to strand runners throughout the game. That changed in Game 2, especially in the second and sixth-inning rallies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was kind of one of the keys of the game was to see base-runners that we could get to try to create traffic on the bases because I felt like that the short game, us being able to steal a bag, bunt, I thought that was very much in our favor,\u201d Smith said. \u201cSo, we were able to get guys on and then, as opposed to Game 1, when we did get them on, we got big hits to score them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The one thing that was consistent on the day was great pitching from top to bottom. Spain Park\u2019s five pitchers combined to allow just one run across 13 innings, including Holmes\u2019 dominant start to Game 2 that earned him the win.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a moment that makes Smith reminisce on how far the pitching staff has come since the beginning of the year, moving from unknown products to a legitimate strength that is peaking at the right time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are guys that, we go into the season, we don’t have one guy on a roster that threw an area pitch and then to have them come in and be their best and throwing their best right now during the playoffs is very much a blessing,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
Spain Park will advance to face the winner of Stanhope Elmore vs. Gulf Shores on the road on May 8 and 9 in the Class 6A quarterfinals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The second game brought much more immediate offense when Evan Taylor sent a grounder up the gap with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[543,542,541,17,539,540],"class_list":{"0":"post-15010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-280-reporter","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-hoover","11":"tag-spain","12":"tag-spain-park","13":"tag-spain-park-high-school"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}