By CHUCK LARSEN
Sports Editor
ELGIN – Chickasha opened their baseball season on the road and brought home a good 6-2 win over a scrappy Elgin club looking to atone for a season-opening loss to Cache on Tuesday.
Brad Gore’s guys scored four late runs to break a 2-2 tie, using both the long ball and the small game to get past the tough 4A Owls.
Conditions were pure “early spring game.” There was a steady, heavy wind blowing in from left field towards the first-base dugout for most of the ballgame, hand-cuffing the right-handed hitters and making every fly ball an adventure.
So Chick shortstop Braden Cook went the opposite way, smacking an RBI double up the right-field line to put them up 1-0 in their first at-bat, and the lead held up as Chickasha ace Colin Hightower and Elgin sophomore Trevor Ezell kept the lids on for a few innings.
Elgin finally struck in the home fourth when center fielder Dakota Pearson hit a missile into the wind and out to the fence in left for a two-out, two-run double, the second two-bagger of the inning as some of the Owls finally started timing the flame-throwing Hightower.
The big righty had been eating them up until then, mowing them down with an irresistible high heater for six strikeouts through three frames. Ezell was the only Owl to reach base, patiently working a pass in the third, but after a pop-up and a groundout opened the fourth, cleanup hitter Steve Jenkins ripped one of Hightower’s fastballs to deep left for a standup double.
Ryan Hoback followed, working a walk to set the table for Pearson’s two-run shot, but Pearson got hung out trying to stretch it to third to get the Chicks out of the inning.
Gore had Cook getting loose as soon as they got in. While he was getting warm, leadoff hitter Chance Thomas equalized it for him with a solo homerun to left-center to knot the score at two.
Elgin had trouble adjusting to Cook’s mix of slower, off-speed stuff, picking up and stranding one hitter in the home fifth, and the senior helped himself with an RBI double to left-center, his second of the game, for an insurance run in the top of the sixth. The RBI, however, ended up costing him the game.
The Owls threatened in the home half on a hit batter and a one-out single, but Cook coerced a routine fly ball out to center to get Hoback and caught Pearson looking at a paint job on the outside corner of the plate to end the inning.
The Chicks’ big-game experience showed at crunch time. Right-fielder Dylan Shepard started the inning with an opposite-field home run to right-center, then catcher and twin brother Devan singled sharply to left and Thomas reached on an infield boot to put runners on the corners. Thomas moved to second immediately and they both moved up ninety feet on center fielder Mike McCracken’s chopper to short, scoring Shepard.
Hightower plated Thomas on a sacrifice fly to deep center for the four-run lead and that would be all they’d need.
Ezell reached on a one-out error in the Elgin seventh and was left stranded as Cook ended it with a routine flyout to center and a groundout to short.
Hightower got the win, pitching the minimum five innings, and, ironically, Cook’s RBI in the top of the sixth actually cost him getting the win in relief. The Tower finished with seven strikeouts, two hits and two walks and Cook earned a solid save.
“We started a little slow today but finished pretty well,” Gore said later. “We had some guys step up today that didn’t have to do that for us last year. That’s going to a key now that we don’t have Heath (Wilda) and Tylor (Lee) hitting all those home runs for us. We got some good production out of the bottom of our lineup today and that’s going to be important for us.”
The former OSU ace was pretty happy with his protégés.
“Colin looked real strong and Cookie came in and did a real good job,” the coach added. “We put some pressure on him with a couple of errors and he pitched right through it. He stepped up and made some big pitches for us.”
The Chicks will be at Noble tonight then host the Bears at Elliott Field tomorrow for their home opener. The first pitch for both games is scheduled for 4:30.
