West Boca Wins Big District Game Against Atlantic 8-2

Rigo Beltran stands in for Atlantic against Parker Danciu with Michael Barash behind the plate.

West Boca came out of the gate quickly Friday night and never let up as it scored two runs in four different innings to beat Atlantic 8-2 in a District 7A-14.

The Bulls applied pressure early and often on Atlantic to hand the Eagles their first district loss of the season. Both teams are 5-1 in the district and tied for first.

West Boca starting pitcher Parker Danciu hit the first Atlantic batter of the game, Joey Ohannesian. Two batters later, Eagles starting pitcher Rigo Beltran belted a double that put two runners in scoring position. However, Danciu was able to escape the first without surrendering a run.

In the bottom of the first, West Boca got back-to-back singles from Michael Barash and Thomas Stallone before a Sean Kuchta single to right gave the Bulls a 2-0 lead.

Although Atlantic tallied two more singles in the second from Kyle Blank and Daniel Metz, two Danciu strikeouts and a runner caught stealing ended the top half of the second with the score still at 2-0 Bulls.

After Ian Tfirn reached base on an error to start the second for West Boca, a wild throw to second on a Michael Mule grounder allowed the runners to advance to second and third with none out. Koby Pepia hit a grounder to first and the throw came home in time, but the catcher could not hang on as the Bulls scored their third run. Next, Danciu plated Mule on a fielder’s choice to stretch the West Boca lead to 4-0.

The Atlantic Eagles stayed aggressive and continued to put the ball in play in the third. After an Ohannesian flyout to center to start the inning, Jesse Kiefer reached base on the first West Boca error of the night. Beltran walked and was replaced by courtesy runner Stefan Rolle before a wild pitch advanced both base-runners. With Kieffer on third, catcher Brad Myott grounded out to second, but the late throw home went to the backstop and allowed Rolle to score all the way from second.

It remained a 4-2 ballgame until the bottom of the fifth when Barash led off the inning with a single to left. Stallone laid a beautiful bunt down the first-base line, but the throw to first missed the mark. The five hitter Ryan Owens also laid down a successful bunt, this one good enough for a hit. A passed ball with the bases loaded scored Barash from third and advanced the other two runners, setting up a Sean Kuchta drive to center. The ball was deep enough to get over the jumping center fielder’s head but scored just Stallone from third with only one out. Beltran buckled down to strike out the next hitter and induce an inning-ending popup after that, but West Boca had opened up a 6-2 lead.

West Boca added two more in the sixth on a triple from Mule, a misplayed ground ball off the bat of Pepia and a sac fly from Danciu.

“This win gives us a lot of confidence,” said junior Sean Kuchta, who went 2-for-3 with three RBI.

After losing 2-0 at Atlantic earlier in the season, the reigning 5A state champion Bulls were able to get it done at home.

“We came out a lot more aggressive and put a good game together tonight,” said Kuchta. “We have a lot of expectations to live up to from last year. We feel some pressure, but you just have to ignore it.”

Although the Eagles clearly did not play their best in this game — they committed five errors that resulted in four unearned runs — Atlantic head coach Steve Wilson was not particularly concerned after the game.

“We were rushing ourselves a little bit tonight, but we talked it over with the guys, so we’ll work on that a little bit,” Wilson said.

“We play again on Monday, so the good thing about it is, schedule-wise, we don’t have to wait the extra day. We can get on the field and take care of business. It would have been nice to sew up the number one seed in the district, but we’re still tied. I just ask the guys to make sure when they go home and they look themselves in the mirror, they’ve done the very best they can.”

West Boca head coach Nick Siano was pleased with his team’s performance, saying “we came out to play tonight. We played fundamental baseball and hit all three phases of the game tonight. We hit the ball, played defense and we pitched. So I think we’re pretty tough when we do that.”

“We struck out a lot at the beginning of the year, but we’ve worked hard in practice at just putting the ball in play to make things happen. You strike out, there’s only one thing they have to do, catch the ball. You put it in play, they have to field it, throw it and then catch it. That’s one of the things we really stress with our guys.”

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