Houk Outduels Gabel To Lead Royal Palm Over West Boca

Royal Palm Beach right-hander Brandon Houk kept West Boca hitters off-balance the entire game.

Senior right-hander Brandon Houk knew he needed to have his A game against the No. 1 team in Palm Beach County.

He did, outdueling Sean Gabel to spark No. 7 Royal Palm Beach over West Boca 1-0 in an important 7A-13 game Tuesday night.

Houk pitched a three-hitter over six innings, striking out eight and walking one while throwing 93 pitches. He stranded five runners.

“That is the best command I’ve seen Brandon throw with in his four years,” Royal Palm Beach Manager Bart Wible said. “He’s not going to blow anybody away with an upper 80s fastball. But if he can spot up and hit his locations the way he did tonight, and throw three pitches for strikes, then he’s going to be effective against even the best teams.”

It was West Boca’s first loss of the season and tightened the district race. The Bulls are now 4-1 in the district (6-1 overall) and the Wildcats improved to 3-1 (6-2 overall).

“That’s a good ballclub and you have to give credit to their pitcher,” West Boca Manager Nick Siano said. “He did a great job keeping us off-balance and throwing strikes on any pitch, any count. So you’ve got to tip your hat; they beat us.”

Houk mixed up his fastball and change-up with an improved curveball as the Wildcats tried to figure out Gabel.

“My change-up has been pretty good, I know I can go to it as my go-to pitch,” Houk said. “My curveball got me ahead (because) they weren’t guessing on two pitches.”

During bullpen sessions with pitching coach Kason Gabbard, Houk has been working on throwing his curveball for strikes.

“It’s not new, it’s been weak,” said Houk, who had confidence in the pitch early against West Boca. “I threw a couple in the first inning to the No. 4 batter, it was dead on, and then my pitching coach picked up on it, so we went with it the whole night to get outs.”

Wible wasn’t sure whether Houk is throwing a curve or a slider.

“He had been throwing a curveball since last year, but it was slow coming along,” Wible said. “It had looked good a couple of times but overall it just wasn’t there. Coach Gabbard tried to change it to a slider, because that’s the way it looked. The funny thing is, tonight it looked more like a curveball than a slider after we worked on it being a slider, but it was effective. However he threw it tonight, we’re going to keep working on it that way and let him keep throwing that pitch. Having that third pitch in his arsenal really kept them off balance.”

West Boca’s Sean Gabel pitched a complete game and allowed just three hits but took the loss.

The Wildcats scored in the bottom of the sixth without a hit.

Senior shortstop Kyle Houck led off by reaching first on an error, moved to second on a balk and advanced to third on Jameel Edney’s sacrifice bunt.

The Bulls seemingly escaped when Houck was thrown out at home on Brandon Hernandez’s grounder to third.

But then Jessie Stebbins and Shendell Winright were hit by pitches to load the bases and Hernandez scored on a passed ball on a 1-2 pitch to Zach Odell.

Gabel took the complete-game loss, allowing just three hits while striking out four and walking one, along with hitting the two batters.

“I think it got away from us a little but we had some opportunities earlier in the game,” Siano said.

The Bulls had runners on third base with one out three times in the first five innings, but could not capitalize.

“It’s early in the season and we have to make adjustments to our mistakes,” Siano said. “You got a guy on third base with less than two outs, you’ve got to do a job. We didn’t do that tonight.”

Ricardo Gonzalez doubled while Ryan Clark and Joe White each had a single for West Boca. Sean Malynn, Jameel Edney and Shendell Winright had a single apiece for Royal Palm.

Winright pitched the seventh to get the save, setting down the Bulls on a pair of groundouts prior to an error that put Gary Garcia on first with two outs. He then induced Angelo Dovas into a foul pop-out to senior catcher Jessie Stebbins to end the game.

“That was probably my best game, going the distance and without the runs,” said Houk, who has not received much interest from college programs. “It’s a big win, they beat us in the regionals two years ago on our home field. It feels good to beat them.”

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