Conchs take advantage of visitors’ miscues

BY RALPH MORROW

MANAGING EDITOR

Key West High’s baseball team could say, “Thank you very much,” as the Conchs took advantage of Stoneman Douglas miscues to record their fifth victory in a row and eighth in nine games, 5-2, Friday night at Rex Weech Field.

The visitors, a “big school” Class 8-A to Key West’s 4-A, committed four errors in the field and a few more on the base paths in the Military Night matchup.

The teams get back at it tonight with another 7:30 p.m. game at the Rex.

After Douglas (3-3) had scored a run in the second, the Conchs (8-1 including preseason) came back with three on two hits in the fourth. With one out, Hugo Valdes doubled to center field, but Darren Miller fanned for the second out. Conch pitcher Brandon Presley followed with a swinging bunt that the Douglas third baseman couldn’t handle and Presley was on base with a single and Valdes was on third. Chris Varela followed with a fly ball to center field that should have been the third out, except the center fielder dropped the ball, allowing both Valdes and Presley to score and on a wild relay to home by the visitor’s second baseman, Varela went to third. When pitcher Tyler Norris threw a wild pitch, Varela picked up the third run of the Conch inning.

The visitors reduced the Key West lead to 3-2 with a run in the fifth, but might have had more had a foul down the right field line been ruled fair. The umpire’s call brought Douglas coach Todd Fitz-Gerald out to argue, as he also had done previously on other calls.

The Conchs picked up two more runs in the sixth. A walk, an error by the first baseman on a sacrifice bunt by Presley and another walk loaded the bases. Following an out, Anthony Henriquez collected his second hit of the night and season with a blooper to left that scored one run. Stevie Wells got the fifth run home on a single to right for his 10th run batted in of the season.

Presley was efficient through 5 1/3 innings with Wells finishing up.

 

 

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