Eder Dominates As Atlantic Wins Big Over West Boca

In just his second start, Bulls lefty Jake Eder allowed only one baserunner as he won his first game of the year.

Photo Gallery

With the number of games dwindling down day by day, the hunt to enter the postseason on a hot streak remains on the forefront of many teams’ minds. For the Atlantic Eagles, who had lost three straight games before a win Wednesday night against Santaluces, starting a winning streak would be a great first step towards getting ready for district playoff games. Thursday night, the team did exactly that as they had an offensive explosion for the second straight night en route to a 9-2 win over the West Boca Bulls.

“Tonight was a big win. We’ve been going through a bit of a downspell, but we’re really trying to get more motivated as we approach districts and that’s exactly what we saw from our guys tonight,” Atlantic manager Steve Wilson said. “We’re taking things one game a time and I loved the fact that we were so aggressive, finding balls and trying to drive the ball. When we were in a slump, we were a little tentative at the plate and that wasn’t the case tonight.”

Making sure that the goal of a winning streak would become reality was junior lefty Jake Eder, who held the Bulls hitless through five innings and allowed only one man to reach base. Lawrence Ghougasian was hit by a pitch with two outs in the second, between strikeouts of Vince Bell and Landon Shimel. Eder struck out six total Bulls on the night, before departing and handing the ball over to the bullpen.

“I felt really good in pregame and I tried to focus on getting my mind right so that I knew what pitches I had to execute and what I had to do when I took the mound,” Eder said. “This was actually only my second start so I’m trying to build off that and keep going the rest of the season. Having the guys back me up and give me some runs to work with when I got back on the mound to start the second definitely gave me some confidence.”

Eder was helped by some excellent defense behind him, including a sliding stop at first base by fellow junior Justin Varisco in the fifth inning to preserve the no-hitter. While Eder remained dominant even in his last inning of work, he was replaced by Max Charnin to start the sixth inning. Charnin, who drove in the team’s first run of the night with an error in the bottom of the first, finished off the game for the Eagles and made sure the team was able to walk away with their second consecutive victory.

Eagles junior Michael Pace takes a pitch during Thursday's 9-2 win over the Bulls.

“Jake pitched a fantastic game tonight. He had great control, he was mixing his pitches, his fastball and curveball looked great, and it was a really impressive start,” Wilson said. “We had Jake on a bit of a pitch count and we wanted Max to get some more work in since he hadn’t worked in a little while.”

Immediately following Charnin’s first-inning RBI, catcher Duane Cyr drove in two more runners with a triple off West Boca starter Ryan Powers. After only scoring two runs in their three-game losing streak and being shut out in consecutive games against Okeechobee and Forest Hill, the Eagles found much success off the Bulls’ junior as they scored five runs in the first three innings off him. The Bulls defense made three errors behind Powers before manager Nathan Underwood made the switch to the bullpen.

While things didn’t go perfect for West Boca on Thursday night, the team was able to stage a comeback attempt in the late innings. It began with Gabe Barone ending the no-hitter with a line drive single to right field. After Barone went to third base on a double from shortstop Jordan Keller, Dominic Iagrossi ended the shutout with a grounder to first base that resulted in a fielder’s choice RBI. The second run then scored thanks to an RBI single from Cory Kuchta, but that was all for the Bulls as Charnin shut them down the rest of the way through.

Leave a comment using your facebook account!