King’s Academy Edges Jupiter Christian 4-3 In Eight Innings

Kevin Stypulkowski drove in the winning run to lead King’s Academy over Jupiter Christian.

It was the perfect scenario for The King’s Academy — the score was tied in the bottom of the eighth inning but the Lions had their best hitter up with a runner on third with one out.

Senior first baseman Kevin Stypulkowski came through, lining a single into right field on the first pitch he saw to lift King’s Academy over Jupiter Christian 4-3 in a District 3A-12 game Thursday in West Palm Beach.

“We have every confidence that Kevin is going to drive the run in,” said King’s Academy head coach Doug Magaw. “Sometimes it happens like it’s supposed to.”

“I was just looking for anything up,” said Stypulkowski, who was hitless in his previous three at-bats and signed to play at the University of Florida. “We had a guy on third with one out so I knew anything up wins the game. I was just trying to get a pitch up and I got it.”

Mark Zippin led off the bottom of the eighth by reaching first on a throwing error. He stole second and moved to third on an infield ground-out by John Carpenter.

“Styp is a pretty good hitter,” said Jupiter Christian head coach Dave Loud. “He can hit the ball. We had the infield in but I don’t know if (pitcher) Andrew (Morgan) missed the spot. Andrew kept it down. He just went out and got it. He had a nice base hit.”

Morgan, a senior, pitched a complete game, striking out five, walking one and hitting one batter while throwing 109 pitches. He struggled early but got stronger as the game went on, retiring 13 consecutive hitters leading up to the final inning.

“He started throwing strikes and once you get on a roll, he had his confidence high,” said Loud. “He just kept coming out, locating the ball consistently and we made the plays behind him defensively, which makes his job a lot easier.”

Magaw was impressed with Morgan’s performance.

“He kept pounding the zone and kept us off balance and we obliged him by hitting more pop-ups than I like to see,” said Magaw. “We just weren’t prepared to drive runs in.”

King’s took a 3-0 lead after the third inning and seemed to have everything under control. Starter Matt Tucker, a freshman left-hander, went the first four innings and only threw 36 pitches, striking out three and allowing only one hit.

Magaw went to the bullpen in the fifth, as was his plan, and Jupiter Christian managed to tie the game with two runs in the sixth and one in the seventh against two relievers.

But Nick Bates, the Lions’ fourth pitcher who started in the outfield, closed out the threat in the sixth by striking out two batters with the go-ahead runner on second. Bates also set down the Eagles in order in the eighth on nine pitches.

“We had some people we wanted to look at,” said Magaw. “There’s no doubt he (Tucker) was in excellent shape, he had no problems but we needed to get some other looks.”

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