BASEBALL: Squeeze provides game’s ending, not the homers
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MARBLE FALLS — The ball was flying all over the outfield and beyond Saturday.
The Marble Falls High School baseball team (12-16, 5-5 in District 25-4A) was trailing Llano, 9-0, by the fifth inning.
IN PHOTO: Senior Turner McQuaide (left) is congratulated by his teammates after hitting a grand-slam home run against Llano Saturday. Photo by Virgil Belk/Hill Country Sports Images
The Yellowjackets (10-8, 6-2 in District 8-3A) had an answer for everything the Mustangs were doing.
Twin brothers Dallas and Dean Redden each hit home runs for Llano that led to four runs en route to plating six and what looked like an insurmountable lead.
Pitcher Dallas Redden gave up three hits and no runs in four innings of work, forcing Marble Falls to strand six runners.
But momentum began to change in the bottom of the fifth when sophomore Zed Woerner hit a two-run homer to trim the deficit, 9-3.
Marble Falls did not allow the Yellowjackets to score another run, forcing them to go three up, three down the final two innings.
Meanwhile, the Mustangs caught a break in the seventh inning. A fielding error allowed freshman Stacy Heinatz to reach first base to start the inning. After a strikeout, freshman Ryan Garcia hit a single and Woerner and senior Thomas Nichols both walked.
The fourth home run of the contest, this one by senior Turner McQuaide, allowed Marble Falls to come within one run of tying the game.
Junior Brian Hicks hit a double to the left corner. Senior Cameron Venghaus answered with an RBI double to the right field corner he turned into a triple, sliding under the tag to be safe.
Mustangs head coach David Norwood called — of all things — a suicide squeeze to end the game.
Senior Justin Garcia, who was 0 for 3 until his last at-bat, connected on a perfect bunt down the first-base line for the winning RBI.
With so many well hit, long balls throughout the game, why did Norwood make that particular call?
“We had a good baserunner on base with a lot of speed and a good bunter at the plate,” he said. “That was a called play from the dugout.”
The coach said the play was called with confidence. But it wasn’t because he had two seniors who have been in the program for four years.
“We call that with anybody at any time,” he said. “We expect our kids at any time to get it done. We feel confident in that play with several kids at the plate.”
Norwood said he has witnessed four home runs in one game before during the Marble Fall Classic with winds blowing 40 mph.
“Any time the wind blows out at our place, it changes the atmosphere at our place,” he said.
Going into the seventh inning, Norwood said he did not give his players any special instructions.
“Battle,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about. We talked about competing.”
In the 12-3 loss to Giddings, the Mustangs actually had one more hit (7-6) than the Buffaloes.
But Marble Falls also recorded five errors to Giddings’ two. The Buffaloes scored eight runs in the third inning.
McQuaide recorded the Mustangs’ only RBI off a single.