Wylie East senior Levi Scroggin, pictured in previous action, struck out five over five innings in Game 1 of a Class 6A Division II bi-district playoff series against Tyler Legacy on Wednesday. Photo by Oladipo Awowale / C&S Media
By David Wolman
As the Wylie East baseball team prepared for the start of its Class 6A Division II bi-district playoff series against Tyler Legacy, the Raiders knew they could lean on their experience of playing in close games.
During the final week of the regular season, Wylie East squeezed out a pair of low-scoring wins over crosstown rival Wylie, winning by scores of 4-1 and 3-2.
Wylie East found itself in another tight game Wednesday, having rallied from an early 2-0 deficit to force extra innings. Tyler Legacy, though, turned back Wylie East’s momentum and countered with three runs in the top of the ninth inning and held on to earn a 6-4 victory at Wylie East High School in Game 1 of the best-of-three series.
The threat of inclement weather forced a change in the game schedule for the series. Game 1 was originally scheduled to be play in Tyler on Thursday, but was moved to Wylie East on Wednesday. Games 2 and 3, if necessary, are slated to be played at Mike Carter Field in Tyler on Saturday.
The start of Wednesday’s series opener was all Tyler Legacy.
Tyler Legacy jumped on Wylie East 2-0 thanks to back-to-back singles by Payne Hotman and Ruger Servis, but Wylie East senior pitcher Levi Scroggin quickly regrouped. Scroggin held to Tyler Legacy to one more run before turning the game over to Jaxon Hatchett in the sixth, and Scroggin received plenty of timely plays from his defense.
Junior shortstop Parker Brunson initiated a double play to extinguish a scoring threat during the second inning. Tyler Legacy put two on with two outs following consecutive at bats in which a Raiders batter was hit by a pitch, but Brunson fielded a ground ball, stepped on the bag at second base and threw to freshman first baseman Will Thomas to complete a double play.
One inning later, Wylie East turned back another Tyler Legacy scoring threat with junior catcher Matthew O’Neill throwing out a base runner at second base to turn the tide of the inning.
“That’s just the way that Levi has been all year,” head coach Heath Andrews said of Scroggin, who finished with five strikeouts. “He’s steady. If things get a little rocky or he gets a little tired, he’ll work his way back in. That’s what he does. He’s pretty deceptive with his pitches. He gets people to hit out in front of a pitch and gets ground balls and fly balls. He’s a senior leader. That’s our guy. He gave us a chance to win.”
Wylie East’s offense came to life in the bottom half of the third.
After not being able to push across a run off Tyler Legacy pitcher Jaden Davis in the early going, Wylie East began to string together longer at bats, and it led to a breakthrough. Senior Brandon Johnson reached safely, advanced to third base on a botched pickoff attempt at first base and subsequently scored on an opposite-field single by O’Neill.
O’Neill’s base hit reduced Tyler Legacy’s lead to 2-1.
Tyler Legacy took a 3-1 lead on a Cale Zips RBI single in the fifth, but Wylie East countered with a Lukas Harold sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fifth and tied the score at 3-3 after Brunson dropped an RBI single just in front of Tyler Legacy left fielder Brady Sykes, who made a diving attempt at a fly ball.
“We knew that if we could get Jaden Davis to throw some balls and make him pitch a little bit, we could have some success,” Andrews said. “We finally got an inning where we got 31 pitches on him. That was the whole goal.”
Wylie East had chances to win the game. The Raiders had the go-ahead run on base in the sixth and the winning run on base in the eighth, but the Raiders were unable to capitalize on either scoring chance. Tyler Legacy took the lead for good in the ninth, with the first run scoring on a throwing error before taking a 6-3 lead on a two-run single by Zips.
Wylie East got one run back in its half of the ninth on an O’Neill RBI ground-out, but a fly-out and subsequent strikeout ended Game 1.
“We had our chances,” Andrews said. “We had our top guys up to hit and runners in scoring position. That was the difference today. They got runners at second and were able to drive in guys with two outs. We had the opportunities ourselves and we didn’t match that.”
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