The Leopard baseball team took on The Colony in the team’s first district game of the year. The team won by a final score of 5-3 while tallying nine hits and only allowing the Cougars one hit.
“The Colony does a good job of making you earn everything,” head coach Ryan Gros said. “They threw strikes and played clean defense. That’s the recipe to competing in district games, and they executed just that. Our guys did a good job of jumping ahead of them early on and then holding ground the rest of the game.”
Notable contributors included senior Michael Holden who had 3 hits on the day, along with fellow senior Adam Eschler and sophomore Kyle Branch, who both had hits that brought in two runners.
“The team did not perform the best that we could, however, we were still able to come out with a win,” junior centerfielder Aidan Smith said. “The expectation for us going into the game was to beat them in all aspects of the game. We wanted a run-rule but in the end, we still came out with a win.”
On the mound for the Leopards was senior Jack Livingstone. Livingstone pitched five innings, which consisted of four strikeouts, and allowed the only hit of the game in the third inning.
“Jack Livingstone started, and he did well to keep us in the game and only held them to two runs,” senior shortstop Kolby Branch said. “Then Parker Hutchins came in and pitched a great 2 shutout innings.”
Senior Parker Hutchins finished the last two innings of the game to help the Leopards seal the deal.
“We challenged The Colony with both our hitting and pitching,” Smith said. “Jack Livingstone started on the mound for us and threw a great game. He only gave up three runs in five innings. In addition, our hitters had good at-bats at the plate.
The team scored one run to home plate in the first inning; then had a big splash in the second as they added three runs. The last run for the Leopards came in the sixth inning.
“Our goal is to make a state-run to Austin and we expect to win district and advance farther in the playoffs than we did last year,” Branch said.
The team currently holds a 7-6 overall record and will continue their district play Friday as they host Wylie East.
“We want to continue to play the way we are playing,” Gros said. “Throwing strikes, playing clean defense, being competitive with our at-bats, and applying pressure with aggressive baserunning are the things that we know we need to do to win games. We are determined to continue executing and improving in those areas.”
