Forest Hill Continues Tournament Streak With Win

Forest Hill’s Chris Bautista was 1-for-4 and scored twice for the Falcons.

Tuesday was a rewarding day for the Forest Hill Falcons.

Amidst an up-and-down season the team has returned to Lake Worth’s GGI Classic to defend the title it won last year.

Following an 11-0 shutout over Boynton Beach, Forest Hill now finds itself one game away from returning to the championship, which will be played Friday at the tournament site at Dave Manzo Field in Lake Worth.

“We’re the defending champs; we’ve got to come back out and prove it,” Falcons Manager Russ Milliken said. “Last year we came in on more of a big ride; this year we’re struggling a little bit. So this is a good place to try and turn things around. If we can win Thursday, that championship will be one we’ll have to go out and play very well.”

For any parent or coach, seeing your kid perform well is a blessing and a treat. But when you are the parent and the coach, it is even better still.

Starting the game and going the distance for the Falcons (8-9) on Tuesday was Milliken’s son Madison, who had the chance to pitch in front of his grandmother, uncle and other relatives who are in town visiting.

The right-hander responded with the game of his career, going the distance for the complete-game shutout to earn the win and improve to 2-3 on the year.

“That is probably the best game he has thrown all year,” Coach Milliken said.

The senior struck out five while walking two and hitting two batters.

Boynton’s Kyle Tedesco lined a single through the left side of the defense with two outs in the bottom of the fifth inning, breaking up Madison Milliken’s no-hit bid on the team’s final swings.

But other than that, it was a tough day for the Tigers (2-12).

Coming into the game Boynton Beach had begun to play their best baseball in years, but those memories were quickly erased as the team struggled right away in allowing seven unearned runs in the first two innings.

“They’ve gone back in time here. We lost what we gained,” Tigers Manager Evan D’Angelo said. “We had our bats awake and then today they were sleeping. We cleaned up the errors and then they came back to us. So when we didn’t come out ready to play, it just piled up on us.”

Jesus Delgado opened the game with a double to centerfield and Jose Crespo singled to put runners on the corners.

Boynton Beach catcher Victor Hughes catches Forest Hill’s Jesus Delgado at the plate on an assist from Tigers shortstop Christian Perez.

Boynton responded as shortstop Christian Crespo fired home on a fielder’s choice groundball, getting the ball to catcher Victor Hughes with plenty of time to tag Delgado at the plate.

But after Anthony Bautista was hit by a pitch to load the bases, an infield error brought home Crespo and Chris Bautista. Falcons catcher Juan Iglesias dropped a blooper into “no-mans” land in shallow left field on a hit that just eluded several chasing fielders and sent Anthony Bautista in to make it 4-0.

Forest Hill added three more runs on errors in the second inning, staking Madison Milliken with all the support he would need.

“We hit the ball well, and it came at exactly the right time for us,” Coach Milliken said. “We’ve still got a lot of things to work on. We messed up a couple of things, had some running mistakes, some errors, but for the most part we played pretty well.”

Iglesias was 3-for-3 with two RBIs and Delgado finished 2-for-3 with a stolen base and a run.

Despite not allowing an earned run during his three innings of work, Boynton starter Kyle Tedesco took the loss to fall to 0-5 on the season. The junior allowed six hits and two walks while striking out a pair.

Although Tuesday’s result was a poor indicator, D’Angelo knows his team continues to make strides this season. This loss was only the second time all season a team won by a mercy-rule shortened result, and the Tigers had played close in most games this season.

Another example of their improvement came in the top of the third inning, as the catcher Hughes helped erase the memories of all the times over recent years that teams have run wild on the bases against them. The hulky junior fired a laser on a line to second baseman Derrick Lewandowski in time to record the out on a potential base-stealer.

“I just remind them of what our potential is,” D’Angelo said. “This isn’t how our future is going to unfold. Tonight we sleep on it, and tomorrow we come back ready and motivated to not let this sort of thing happen again.”

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