SEYMOUR — Seymour’s baseball team opened up a 4-0 lead on Trinity Lutheran through three innings of play and held on for a 6-4 win on Law Enforcement Appreciation Night on Tuesday.
The top three batters in Seymour’s lineup, Alan Perry, Satoshi Hirose and Luis Munoz, reached base a combined nine times on five hits, three walks, a hit batsman, scored five runs and had three RBIs.
“Our 1-2-3 guys, one of them is a three-year, and one of them is a four-year starter so we expect that to be the plan, and we can do a lot of things with them,” Owls coach Jeremy Richey said. “Alan stole four bases and did a lot of nice things. Luis came up with some big at-bats. Sami was not as sharp at the plate as we expected, but he’s going to be fine. He’s hit the ball really well in practice.
“So it starts there and when we get the rest of our line up hitting and we’re going to be just fine.”
The Owls finished with eight hits, and the Cougars had six hits.
Perry led off the bottom of the first with a single, stole second and scored on a bloop double down the right field line by Munoz. A.J. Boshears singled to move Munoz to third, and Munoz scored when Boshears got in a rundown between first and second.
Perry was hit by a pitch leading off the third, and Hirose followed with a walk. Perry later scored on a balk and Munoz hit a sacrifice fly to drive in Hirose.
Ty McCory led off Seymour’s fourth inning with a walk and was replaced by courtesy runner Ezra Barr, who scored when Munoz walked with the bases loaded to make it a 5-0 game.
In the top of the fifth, the Cougars’ Aaron Bowers was safe at first on a dropped third strike. Jake VonDielingen singled, and Ross Kruse doubled into right field with Bowers easily scoring on the play, and when the relay from the outfield was misplayed, VonDielingen also scored.
Perry singled in the sixth and scored on an error to complete Seymour’s scoring.
In the top of the seventh, Jacob Crockett walked, VonDielingen singled, and Kruse was safe on an error to load the bases for Trinity. Jake Moore walked to force in Crockett, and Chandler Reynolds hit a sacrifice fly to left to drive in VonDielingen.
“I thought our defense was solid,” Cougars coach Matt VonDielingen said. “We had a couple throwing errors, I believe, but we didn’t boot the ball around or anything. Our gloves were real solid.
“We got better as the game progressed offensively. I think our guys so far have been slow starters, but as we get into the game we get our blood pumping and we start hitting the ball a little better. Maybe that’s my fault for not getting them fired up enough early.”
Jake VonDielingen had two hits and scored two runs, Moore had two walks, Reynolds was on base three times, and Nick Mensendiek was on base twice.
The Cougars cut their strikeouts down to five against two Seymour pitchers after striking out nine times Monday against Edinburgh. Moore pitched the first 3 2/3 innings for Trinity and struck out three and walked five.
Richey said it was a good experience for his team to face Moore, a left-hander.
“I’m glad we got to face him,” Richey said. “He’s a good pitcher and we’ll see a lot of good pitchers in the conference.”
Hirose, who pitched five innings, was credited the win on the mound for the Owls.
Perry topped the Owls offensively with three hits and three runs plus four stolen bases, and Munoz had a single, double, one run and three RBIs.
Coach VonDielingen said he enjoyed the game because he had coached several of the Seymour players.
“It was a really fun game for me because half of the boys on that team I coached like 8-12 youth,” he said. “It’s always fun to come out and see boys that you’ve had a hand in coaching and to see how they’ve developed and what kind of young men they’re becoming. Jeremy’s got him a really good group of guys. He’s very fortunate, as am I.”
