By Robert Morgan | Published Thursday, May 14, 2009
If the Paradise High School baseball team wants to make some noise in the state playoffs, it will need to play defense like it did Friday against state-ranked Windthorst.
The Panthers played error-free in a warm-up game against one of the best Class 1A schools in the state. However, they were not able to string together enough hits to chalk up a run in a well-played 1-0 loss.
"It was a good warm-up game. I thought we played pretty good considering it was our first game in two weeks," said PHS coach Scott Broussard. "We played great defense and hit the ball pretty good. We just couldn't get the hits to fall in when we needed them most."
Paradise, which finished third in District 9-2A with a 16-9 overall record, will begin its playoff run this week in a best-of-three series against Pilot Point. Game one is set for 7 p.m. Thursday, while game two is set for 2 p.m. Saturday, which will be followed by a third game if needed. All games will be played at Lake Dallas High School.
Windthorst, ranked No. 2 in the state with an overall mark of 24-3, scored the only run of the game in the fifth inning and that held as the game winner.
Paradise used four pitchers to keep the Trojans at bay. Ryan Smart threw the first two innings, Kaleb Read took care of the third and fourth, P.J Fuller fired the heat in the fifth and Nick Pike closed things out in the sixth and seventh.
Offensively, the Panthers out-hit Windthorst 5-4 but were not able to push a runner across home plate.
Taylor Castleberry, Braiden Black, Eric Villanueba, Fuller and Read accounted for the five hits.
