Royal Palm Blanks Forest Hill For Crucial District Win

Royal Palm starting pitcher Jordan Lauginiger throws five scoreless innings while striking out 8 to get the win.

Jordan Lauginiger threw five scoreless innings for Royal Palm Beach as the Wildcats beat Forest Hill 8-0 Friday night to move into a first-place tie with Santaluces atop the 7A-13 standings.

In what Royal Palm Manager Bart Wible described as a “must-win game” to his players, the Wildcats came out and played a complete game to get the win.

“I told the guys before the game and for the last couple of days that this was a must-win game,” Wible said. “We had to have it and told them that I know it’s a little bit of pressure, but you have to be able to play with pressure. We put the pressure on them, and the team came through tonight.”

The Wildcats were aggressive early. They got to Forest Hill’s starting pitcher in the first inning, scoring three quick runs.

After going down in order in the second, they came out in the third and continued to fire away. They put up two more runs in the third and three more in the fourth, highlighted by center fielder Cruz Alcazar’s two-run single.

The key to the offense on the night for Royal Palm was its ability to manufacture runs and play small ball. They stole nine bases. That coupled with the smart baserunning when it came to errors and wild pitches gave the Wildcats plenty of scoring opportunities to cash in on.

The small-ball mentality is something new that Wible has been working on with his team after some early season adjustments.

“We came into the season thinking we were going to be a really good-hitting team and we struggled at the plate, and so we had to change our approach,” Wible said. “Recently, it has helped us a lot. Stealing more bases and having some success doing that has turned us around a little bit to where we are winning some games.”

The story of the night for Royal Palm was the performance of their ace pitcher Jordan Lauginiger, who threw five shutout innings and allowed only two Forest Hill runners on base, one on a walk and one on a single.

He had a perfect game going until the fourth when he gave up a walk to Falcon leadoff man Jesus Delgado and lost his no-hitter in the fifth on an infield hit from Abraham Tatis. Lauginiger had great command of the strike zone overall as he struck out eight and kept Forest Hill guessing all night.

Forest Hill pitcher Tyler Withington has a meeting on the mound with his infield.

“I just hit my spots and good things came for me,” Lauginiger said. “My offspeed was good, and my fastball was on point. My pitching coach gets the credit. He calls the pitches I just throw it.”

Forest Hill ended the night with two hits and Falcons coach Russ Milliken knows that his team has to change its approach at the plate if it wants to win games.

“We have to be more aggressive than we are right now,” Milliken said. “We are in a little struggle with that right now as far as being aggressive. As a coach, I can say, ‘Be more aggressive,’ but the players need to start saying, ‘Hey, I need to be more aggressive,’ and that is something we need to work on and we are going to change it.”

Both teams will be competing in Spring Break tournaments next week. Royal Palm will head up to Jacksonville to participate in the Providence Tournament while Forest Hill will participate in the Lake Worth Tournament.

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