Forest Hill Celebrates Senior Night With Victory Over Lake Worth

Justin Rodriguez is one of five seniors to pitch for Forest Hill on Senior Night.

Forest Hill (7-5) celebrated its Senior Night on Monday with a 10-2 victory over the Lake Worth Trojans (4-8).

Things opened up after a five-run fourth inning, but filling the lineup with seniors led to some early offensive struggles for the Falcons. Pitchers got hacks they normally wouldn’t after opting to start in the field for the first inning before allowing the regulars to take over in the second. The other senior pitchers chose to pitch an inning (or two) as Falcons manager Russ Milliken worked his way through five arms on the evening.

Left-hander Kevin Mebil got the start for Forest Hill. After cruising through his scheduled one inning of work, Mebil turned the ball over to the Rodriguez twins, Justin and Jonathan, for the second and third innings, respectively. One run scored in the second, but it was due to an error. Then came the second pair of twins of the evening for the Falcons — the White twins, Christian and Adrian. Each pitched two innings with Adrian closing out the game. He gave up a run in the seventh, but Forest Hill could afford it coming into the inning with a nine-run lead.

“Our team, we play well together,” Mebil said. “We were each throwing an inning, and I knew we’d get through it the best we could. I trust in our hitting and our pitching depth. We combine well.”

Mebil said it was an honor to get the start on Senior Night despite the outing ending quicker than a typical one would. Sharing the mound with his teammates and seeing them succeed is as good as it gets for him.

“Brotherhood,” he responded when asked about what he’ll miss most about this club once the season finally does come to an end. “We all grew up playing with each other. The connection, the chemistry that we all have, I’m going to miss it.”

Liam Landers gets the start for the Lake Worth Trojans on Monday against Forest Hill.

In total, 16 seniors took the field on Monday for the Falcons, but two of them were limited to honorary first pitches before the ball game. The Falcons lost shortstop Joshua Rodriguez (knee) to injury before the season and centerfielder Jacob Katz (wrist) after just three games. Still, the goal is to finish the season better than the last one and that means making it to the district championship for Forest Hill.

“This is a squad that’s had a lot of kids moved around,” Milliken said. “The two kids that threw out the first pitch, those guys are starters. Unfortunately, due to a broken wrist and torn meniscus, we’ve had to start players at positions they normally wouldn’t. But if you work hard enough, a lot of times good things will happen and they’ve worked hard.”

Milliken added that he’d like to see his team hit more line drives, but it’s something they can work on in practice after a win. It’ll need to be a quick turnaround, though. Santaluces (6-8), the team that knocked Forest Hill out of the district tournament in 2021, is up next on the schedule. The Chiefs will host the Falcons on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. when Milliken will likely turn to Mebil once again for the start.

Lake Worth has a little more time to recover until its next game. The Trojans are back home Friday against Berean Christian (1-5) and are hoping to rebound for the club’s fifth win of the season. That fifth win is important because it’ll be the first time since 2016 that Lake Worth has totaled five wins in the season. Things are still are work in progress for second-year manager Ryan Giacalone, but he’s made a massive impact on the program in just a short while. Milliken was quick to compliment Giacalone’s team, calling the Trojans scrappy after holding his Falcons to a one-run lead through four innings. It’s a far cry from the Lake Worth teams of 2017 and 2018 that combined for just one win in 36 games.

“We expected to play better,” Giacalone said. “We come in here with high expectations and were excited for this one. It was their Senior Night so we were hoping to give a good game. A couple of defensive mistakes set the tone for the game and kind of deflated us a little bit. We had a couple of chances to rally back and didn’t execute, but for the most part, we need to play a cleaner brand of baseball that we’ve been struggling to find over the last week or two.”

Catcher Nicholas Diaz at the plate for Forest Hill.

Of course, Giacalone was quick to point out the positives of the evening shortly after going through the negatives. He liked what he saw from his starter, senior Liam Landers, who struck out five while giving up seven runs (two earned) in 3 2/3 innings. Errors led to an ugly fourth inning for the Trojans that saw five Falcons cross the plate. Landers night was done on the mound, but he’s still the unquestioned leader of the pitching staff. He didn’t have a bad night at the plate either as he reached base on three of his four plate appearances.

“That’s a lot of responsibility on me, but I like it,” Landers said when asked about being the Trojans’ go-to guy. “I like playing with the stress. It helps me play better, but then again it’s not all about one player. Everyone needs to back each other up, which we need to work a little bit harder on.”

Landers pointed to communication issues as the culprit of many of the team’s woes. He’s hopeful that the routine plays will become more routine for the defense as they work on them in practice. As one of two seniors on the team, Landers’ leadership after losses like this one is crucial to Lake Worth’s development. He called baseball a game of failure and noted that a 30% success rate at the plate is considered elite. If his teammates can adopt a similar approach, the Trojans should have no problem adding at least a few more wins to the overall record before the playoffs.

“Our high school gets a bad rap but that has nothing to do with our baseball team,” Giacalone said. “We’ve got a great group here. Last year was my first year here and before I got here it was very down. We did a good job getting four across the board last year and sitting at that number now at about the halfway point. Our expectation is we want to be a .500 team. We still have time to right the ship and get there. Double-digit wins would be awesome, but we take it one game at a time and hope to keep building year-to-year.

“We’re a little below expectations right now, but I love our group and where we’re at. Depending on where we finish toward the end of the season, we’ll be ready for districts.”

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