Trinity Offense Wakes Up Late For 4-0 Victory Over Zion Lutheran

Trinity’s Sjaghbar Martis scores during a four-run seventh inning that lifted the Warriors to the victory.

Trinity Christian freshman Dowenrick Daanjti blamed himself personally for their past few losses.

The young third baseman was determined to bounce back in Thursday’s matinee road contest at Zion Lutheran, and even sent a text message to his coach Thursday morning just to let him know he would show up big for this one.

Daanjti lived up to his promise by delivering the winning hit in the top of the seventh inning to break a scoreless tie and lead the Warriors to a 4-0 victory over the Lions.

“I text Coach this morning and told him today I would come with my mind good so I can play,” Daanjti said, after going 3-for-4 in the game. “Today I was hitting number two against a lefty, so I knew I had to do my job and just relax up there. I’m a right-handed hitter, so with lefties the ball comes inside, so I just tried to make contact and that’s it.”

The Warriors (7-5) led off the top of the seventh with consecutive singles off of Zion starter Alex Ernestine, as Rouney Hermans reached on a high bouncer that ate up the shortstop and Sjaghbar Martis followed by scorching a liner into right field.

Both runners advanced on a sacrifice bunt to get into scoring position, and then Bruce Martin was hit by a pitch to load the bases and bring Daanjti to the plate. Daanjti supplied the dagger with an RBI single up the middle to push across all the runs Trinity would ultimately need.

Trinity added some insurance support by drawing a pair of bases-loaded walks before Byron Murray closed the scoring with a sacrifice flyout that scored Daanjti.

“It could have gone both ways,” Warriors Manager Miguel Cuello said. “There will be games when we score 15 runs, and there will be games where we’re going to have to make a run. It’s just part of the game.”

Trinity Christian is used to playing in challenging environments. The team spends the majority of its time playing road games, many of which take them to fields they are playing on for the first time.

“We don’t have motivation from fans or anything, but I think we provide it for ourselves,” Warriors starting pitcher Emilio Pena said.

But Thursday’s matinee contest provided an extra twist that wrecked havoc on both team’s game plans, as a strong swirling wind blew in from left field all game long.

The Warriors Franco Guardascione was 1-for-3 with an RBI.

The Warriors have averaged over eight runs a game this year, while displaying tons of power in sporting Palm Beach County’s top two home run hitters in Darren Seferina and Byron Murray, who have hit five and four home runs, respectively.

The team was also coming off of a game in which leadoff hitter Bruce Martin had just hit for the cycle to become the first player to do so in school history.

Yet even as both these squads typically supply plenty of offensive firepower, this curveball from Mother Nature greatly affected the way both teams approached the contest, and put extra pressure on both team’s pitchers and defense.

“The wind was just gushing everywhere, and your approach is different at the plate,” Zion Manager Mike Dobre said. “I think our team stepped it up. We were hitting the balls hard, but we were hitting it right at them. Trinity Christian is a really good hitting team and they made some plays, but in the last inning we paid for our mistakes.”

Through six innings the Warriors high-powered offense was held in check by the hard-throwing lefty Ernestine, who fell to 2-3 with the loss.

Meanwhile the team benefited in having its own ace on the hill to match their efforts pitch for pitch, as junior starter Emilio Pena went the distance for the third time on the year while limiting Zion (6-4) to five hits.

“I was just throwing strikes and getting the ball in,” Pena said, after tossing 52 of his 71 pitches for strikes while striking out three. Pena improved to 3-2 this season while picking up his first career shutout at the high school level.

After Trinity broke through to stake him the lead in the top half of the final frame, the right-hander could not wait to get back on the mound and put the finishing touches on the victory.

“It feels good, like I’m a new pitcher, like I’m a closer coming in,” Pena said. “All I wanted was to just shut the game down and keep us winning.”

Trinity’s Bruce Martin bats in the first inning. Martin scored as part of a four-run seventh inning that secured the win.

Pena was perfect his first time through the Lions’ lineup, before JR Meneses broke up his no-hit bid with a standup double on a deep shot to left-center field with two outs in the bottom of the fourth inning to give Zion its first scoring opportunity.

Trinity avoided any damage as the third baseman Daanjti made a nice back-handed scoop on a scorcher off the bat of Ernestine and then spun around to make a perfect throw to first to record the final out of the inning.

It was just one of many fine plays from a Warriors defense that played error-free on the day.

“Sometimes it’s very good when you have to try to do something different,” Cuello said. “We had to play the little baseball, the bunt, the pitcher backing up the throw, and then timely hitting. Tuesday we scored nineteen runs and today coming in seeing that big field we were excited. But then we felt the wind. It goes both ways because they had the same thing, and they hit some balls on the screws too.”

After Palm Beach County won the HSBN Preseason Challenge over Broward and Miami-Dade counties this year, Thursday’s result evened things at 8-8 between Broward and Palm Beach County teams playing one another thus far in 2013.

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