Goat baseball season underway

The Groesbeck baseball season got under way this week despite the interesting weather. On Monday, the Goats suited up against the Trojans of University over at Waco ISD baseball stadium. The weather was more fitting for an Alaskan hockey crowd. With temperatures in the mid 30’s and brisk winds blowing everyone was up for a quick paced game.

After 29 runs and 3 and a half hours the Goats walked away with a very frigid 18-11 victory. The Goats were led at the plate by Darren Ingram who had 3 hits including a double and also 3 RBIs. Kyle Cortines drove in 4 runs for the Goats and had a triple. On the mound the Goats threw the whole staff at the Trojans. Ingram started and threw two inning, Chase Burrow relieved first and threw the 3rd and 4th innings. From there the Goats used JD Perkins, Steven Ruen, and Mikey Bielamowicz.

After taking two days off for a snow break, the team returned to action on Thursday at the Palestine/ Elkhart Tournament. Their first game in pool play was against the Fairfield Eagles. Steven Ruen took the mound for the Goats on another chilly but more bearable night. He threw 4 and one third innings and struck out 10 batters. Even with this great performance on the mound the Goats found themselves deadlocked at 3-3 with the Eagles headed into the bottom of the 5th inning. Blaine Perkins drew a leadoff walk and then promptly stole 2nd base. After a strikeout by the two-hole hitter, Kyle Cortines stepped up and singled to left center driving in Perkins to reclaim the lead for the Goats. After another strikeout for the second out of the inning, Chase Burrow drew a walk to put runners on 1st and 2nd. Bobby Coslin then doubled to the left center gap driving in both Burrow and Cortines and extending the lead to 6-3. JD Perkins pitched the 6th inning for the Goats and picked up the win when catcher Mikey Bielamowicz threw out a runner trying to steal second base. The game ended there due to tournament time limit rules. Friday’s action in the tournament got pushed back due to another round of rain. So the Goats headed back over Saturday morning for a 10 o’clock game with Cushing. The Goats jumped out of the gate early and often, scoring 13 runs in the first inning including a 3-run home run by Darren Ingram. Ingram, Bielamowicz, and Scott Smith all had multiple RBIs on the game for the Goats. Bielamowicz also pitched the game for the Goats registering a no-hitter and striking out 5 to pick up the 14-0 win. The Goats got a one hour break, which was just enough time to travel from the Palestine Westwood field over to Elkhart for their next game against Pollock Central. Central brought a very tough test for the Goat squad. They scored 1 run in the top of the first on pitcher Darren Ingram. When the Goats came up in the bottom of the 1st things got off to a tremendous start. Blaine Perkins and Chase Burrow walked to start the inning. Kyle Cortines followed that with a double in the gap scoring both runners for a 2-1 lead. Things got a little crazy from there. JD Perkins hit a shallow ball into centerfield. The centerfielder came in fast and seemingly scooped the ball up on a short hop and tried to throw out Cortines who was running to third. They put the tag on him after he was already on the bag. However, the 2nd base umpire called that the centerfielder had caught the ball and that Cortines was also out because he had not tagged up. So the great start now had 2 outs and nobody on. The Goats failed to get anything else going in the inning and the game went to the second with the Goats up 2-1. Central took advantage of 2 Goat errors in the top of the 2nd to move back ahead 3-2. With the Goats unable to put anything together in their half of the inning, Central came back up looking to add to their lead. They did. Putting 2 more runs across the plate and moving out to a 5-2 lead. The score stayed that way for the next three innings until Central added one more to their total in the top of the 6th. The Goat team was not able to muster any kind of a comeback in their half of the 6th and time ran out. The final score was 6-2 Central. Darren Ingram was very strong on the mound for the Goats despite picking up the loss. He threw 5 and a third innings and kept the Goats right in the mix for the whole game. This marked the end of the tournament for the Goats. With so many games lost on Friday, the tournament was concluded at the end of pool play. The Goats finished 2nd in their pool behind Central. The Goats will be participating in the Fairfield tournament this weekend and will follow that up with a game on Monday the 8th of March with China Spring here at the Goat’s field.