Wylie East junior Trent Jones held Royse City scoreless over the first five innings in Game 1 of a Class 6A Division II bi-district playoff series from Wylie East. Photo by Oladipo Awowale / C&S Media
By David Wolman
Through the first five innings of Thursday’s Class 6A Division II bi-district series, neither offense for the Wylie East or Royse City baseball teams were able to record a breakthrough.
Raiders junior pitcher Trent Jones and Bulldogs senior pitcher Brennan Anderson were tossing zeroes on the scoreboard and both were able to work around any run-scoring threats.
Royse City broke the scoreless tie with a four-run top of the sixth on the power of three straight extra-base hits to begin the inning while unsuccessful bunt attempts by Wylie East came back to haunt the Raiders in a 4-1 loss.
The Bulldogs had a chance to pounce on the Raiders early. A Brayden Langham lead-off walk and an Eli Snow single in the top of the first inning put runners on first and second bases put runners on first and second bases with zero outs, but Jones didn’t flinch. Jones induced consecutive fly-ball outs before a successful pickoff of a Royse City base runner at first base ended the threat.
Jones settled in nicely after the shaky start. He went on to work around six hits and struck out four in six innings. Tyler Heidenreich came on in relief of Jones in the seventh inning and allowed just one hit in his one inning of work.
Wylie East’s offense, through, struggled to back up the efforts of their pitching staff, and it was missed opportunities, especially in bunting situations, that came back to haunt the Raiders.
In the bottom of the fourth, Wylie East had the go-ahead run at third base. The Raiders attempted a safety squeeze but they weren’t able to get a bunt down. On that same play, a Wylie East base runner was thrown out attempting to slide back into third base.
The game remained scoreless until the top of the sixth.
Royse City proceeded to pounce on Wylie East pitching for three consecutive extra-base hits to begin the frame with a Regan Williams RBI double giving the Bulldogs a 2-0 lead.
That advantage grew to 4-0 after a throw to third base on a failed pickoff attempt allowed two more runs to score as the ball rolled deep into foul territory in left field,
Down to its last three outs, Wylie East attempted to string together a rally in the bottom of the seventh inning.
Caleb Vaclavik lined an opposite-field RBI single into right field to get the Raiders on the board.
Wylie East later brought the tying run to the plate, but a strikeout ended the game.
Wylie East (17-11) will travel to Royse City tonight for Game 2, which is set for a 7:30 p.m. start. If necessary, Game 3 will be played at 11 a.m. Saturday at Wylie East.
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