LA HABRA, California- Lance Smith
The Sheps played their 3rd league game and 2nd against the Ventura County Pirates in just 3 days on Monday afternoon at Whittier Christian High School. Andrew Sutherland took the bump for the Sheps and recorded 5.0 IP, 8 strikeouts, and gave up just 2 runs on 4 hits. “Sunny” started the game and was strong as he coasted through the first inning sitting down the Pirates in order. After the first, the Pirates were able to scratch a couple of runs across in the 2nd, but that would be all that they found against Sutherland as he worked out of several jams unscathed and was able to keep the Pirates off balance recording 8 strikeouts.
After Sutherland exited, the bullpen gave up 1 run in the 6th and 2 in the 7th. The Shepherds had plenty of chances to come back but were unable to capitalize as they left 11 runners on base and went 2-11 with runners in scoring position. Emry Jackson, Jamie LaFramboise, Jackson Van Ness and Kaiden Zacharias all had their best games of the season at the plate while the rest of the lineup went a combined 2-21. The boys have made tremendous progress and look like a different team from the first game. The main focus now must be on finding a consistency at the plate and taking advantage of opportunities with runners in scoring position.
Eric Crouse earned the win (1-0) and Ben Peters (0-1) was tacked with the loss.
Notes
- Emry Jackson went 3-3 with 3 singles and a walk
- Jamie LaFramboise went 2-3 with 2 singles and stole 2 bases
- Kaiden Zacharias went 2-4 with 2 RBI doubles
- Jackson Van Ness went 2-4 with 2 singles
- Connor Aldrich went 1 for 3 with a single
- Joey Scotvold went 1-4 with a double
- Teagan Disharoon threw an inning and a third, striking out 2, and giving up 0 runs on 0 hits
Quote from Kaiden Zacharias
“We just need to keep competing, you know we fought hard today and things just didn’t go our way. We’ll take the rest day, maybe get a couple workouts in, get our feet up off the ground, and just come back ready to play on Wednesday.”
What’s next
The Shepherds have an off day tomorrow and start back up with a game against the Long Beach Legends at Whittier Christian High School on Wednesday, the 23rd. The game will be live streamed on the Shepherds Facebook page which can be found at https://www.facebook.com/socalfcabaseball/. To stay up to date on all things Shepherds baseball follow us on Instagram (@shepherds_baseball), Twitter (@SoCalShpherds), and Facebook (Southern California FCA Baseball).