Palm Beach State Knocks Off BCC In Baseball
By Space Coast Daily // April 20, 2013
Titans Look To Keep Season Alive On Saturday
LAKE WORTH, FLORIDA – Brevard Community College managed just five hits and committed five errors in dropping a 9-1 decision to Palm Beach State College in the first game of a best-of-three series on Friday in Lake Worth.
The series, which will determine the Florida College System Activities Association Southern Conference tournament champion and its second entry into the state baseball tournament, continues at noon on Saturday at Palm Beach State’s Lake Worth Campus with the third game, if necessary, to follow 30 minutes later.
Regular-season conference champion Miami Dade received an automatic state bid.
BCC advanced to the title series with a 5-3 victory over Broward College earlier Friday at Palm Beach State.
Whether that come-from-behind victory took too much out of BCC was debatable, head coach Jeff Tam said. But what wasn’t a matter of conjecture was Palm Beach State’s dominance.
The Panthers rapped out 13 hits, five by designated hitter John Underwood, who also had three runs batted in, and got a complete game pitching performance from Ryan Pistey who kept BCC off balance all night.
Palm Beach scored a single run in the first inning and BCC had a chance to break through in the second when it put runners on first and second with nobody out on a walk and a hit batter. But Pistey bore down and wiggled out of the jam.
BCC threatened again in the fifth but came up short and paid for its as Palm Beach scored three time in the bottom of the fifth for a 4-0 lead. The Panthers put the game away with three runs in the eighth for the final margin.
T.J. Glessner, who tripled, scored BCC’s only run when he came home on David King’s double in the eighth.
“The first game we fell behind and we stayed focused and we executed,” Tam said. “The second game, I don’t want to say we’re tired but early on we had a chance to tie it and actually be ahead and we didn’t execute.
“We (also) made some pretty poor pitches in some tough situations. Maybe we should have been pitching around guys.”
That being said, BCC isn’t cowed.
“We’re going to have to buckle down,” Tam said. “There’s nothing wrong with winning two games on Saturday. It can be done. We’re going to have to make good pitches and execute with the bat.”
Starter Ashton Fronsoe took the loss for BCC, allowing five runs and six hits over six innings.
Kenton Hering is scheduled to start Saturday’s first game for BCC.
Palm Beach has beaten BCC five times in seven meetings this season. BCC fell to 24-22-1 overall. Palm Beach improved to 33-17.
