Palm Beach Central Rolls To 7-1 Victory Over Spanish River

Shae Sawczak went four innings and picked up the win for the Broncos Thursday.

The Palm Beach Central baseball team has been unable to maintain any consistency early in the 2014 season. Offense has been hard to come by, and the pitching has been up and down. On Thursday afternoon, the Bronocs put it all together in their most complete win of the season, a 7-1 victory over Spanish River.

The Broncos made sure to take care of business early in this one, scoring four runs in the first inning on three hits. Central was helped in the inning by two Sharks errors, but Andrew Zipp delivered the big blow, a two-run opposite field single. The hit was one of two Zipp had on the day, and the senior was glad his team finally woke up their bats.

“We had been struggling to score runs,” said Zipp. “Today, we were working on just hitting the ball the other way, and we executed in that first inning. It felt good to help the team break out of our slump.”

From there, the Broncos turned the game over to lefty Shane Sawczak. Early on, Sawczak was on his game, retiring nine of the first eleven Sharks he faced, including four via strikeout.

“Early on I felt pretty good,” said Sawczak. “In the middle I got a little tired. I lost a little focus in the fourth, but I was able to get through that inning.”

In the fourth, Spanish River had their biggest threat of the game, with Boomer Saraga, Fenway Parks and Devon Bard all working walks to load the bases with one out. Sawczak was able to work out of the jam by striking out the final two Sharks of the inning, preserving the 4-0 lead.

In their half of the fifth, the Broncos put the game away with three additional runs. Playing fundamental baseball, Joey Romano and Sawczak laid down perfect bunts for base hits. After a double-play, Jorge Alonzo, who also finished the game on the mound, had a two-RBI single. The small-ball approach is something that Manager Scott Benedict preaches to his players.

“That’s huge,” said Benedict of the bunt execution. “It’s something I have written on my comment pad, ‘All bunts do is win games.’ We’re the type of team that we’ve got to be able to handle the bat and execute when we bunt. We haven’t had much success at all with that this year, and we invest a lot of time in it. So it was really good to see these guys execute today.”

Chui Slootsky delivers a pitch for the Sharks.

In the fifth, the Sharks Anthony Acino had the team’s first hit of the game. Saraga followed by driving in the lone Spanish River run of the contest with a single.

Spanish River, which had started the season 4-1, dropped their second contest of the week with the loss. Even with the two losses, Manager Bill Harvey knows their biggest game of the week comes Friday against district and crosstown rival Boca.

“We knew we had a tough week, and wanted to win all three games,” said Harvey. “But we lost the first two, and if you ask anyone in the dugout which game they wanted the most, it would be tomorrow night’s game.”

Sam White will get the call on the mound Friday night for the Sharks. Chui Slootsky started Thursday, and although he did not have his best stuff, he was able to battle through three innings, giving up only three earned runs.

Leave a comment using your facebook account!