Hoffman Pitches Lake Worth Christian Past Wellington Christian

Ryan Adair went 2-for-3 with a walk and three runs for Lake Worth Christian.

Youth was served when Lake Worth Christian and Wellington Christian met Tuesday, and freshman Trevor Hoffman was in control.

The right-hander pitched a four-hitter and struck out six in six innings to lead the Defenders past the Eagles 7-2 in a District 2A-12 game at Seminole Palms Park in Royal Palm Beach.

Lake Worth Christian (2-12) evened its district record to 1-1. It was Wellington Christian’s sixth consecutive loss.

After Wellington Christian (0-1, 3-11) put runners on first and second with one out in the first inning, Hoffman retired the next 10 consecutive batters.

“He was able to make it through the first few innings locating his fastball and then was able to implement his off-speed pitches after that,” Lake Worth Christian manager David Salley said.

Hoffman got into a little trouble in the fifth as Wellington Christian pushed across a run with no outs before he settled down.

“We talked about location and working on his follow-through,” Salley said. “When a pitcher gets fatigued, they want to go back to what their body told them to do when they were 12. So you work them back into following through, keeping balance and driving.”

The Defenders had runners on base in every inning but the fourth.

Freshman pitcher Trevor Hoffman struck out six for Lake Worth Christian.

Sophomore Ryan Adair went 2-for-3 with a walk and three runs to lead Lake Worth Christian. Dustin Lee, Matt Picardi, Shane Lee and Austin Sharkey each hit singles for the Defenders.

“He (Adair) hit the ball hard,” Salley said. “One of the things we work on is staying back on the ball. The pitchers today didn’t have a lot of velocity so he was able to stay back and see the ball through the zone.”

Dustin Goff, a senior right-hander, took the loss, allowing six hits in five innings while striking out two, walking five and hitting one batter. He was relieved by eighth-grader Zach Rogers after the first batter in the sixth inning.

The Eagles scored in the fifth on pinch-hitter Kyle Berkowitz’s single to left and in the seventh on Steven Pettet’s two-out single to right. Pettet, an eighth-grader, led Wellington Christian with two hits.

Lake Worth Christian has only one senior and two juniors.

“We’ve seen a lot of improvements from the beginning of the year, and that’s what we’re most happy with,” Salley said. “We’ve pushed them a lot. It’s definitely a different team. I’m proud of them.”

Wellington Christian manager Robert Pettet told his players after the game that they have to think more.

“It was the mental parts of the game that we did not do right,” coach Pettet said. “We left too many runners on, we missed signs. We didn’t help each other when we were on base. The batters didn’t help the runners. And they realized that after the fact. That part we have work on in practice. It’s the little things that we have to keep in our head.”

Boca Raton Christian (1-0) can clinch the district title with a victory over Wellington Christian at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

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