Round Rock Tournament - Day 3

What a difference a day makes...yesterday 88, today 48 with a 25 mph wind. It was cold for sure. SLC faced Monterrey HS from Lubbock, TX. It was a back and forth game until the 6th inning when the Dragons blew the game open with a 6 run 6th inning. After a 1,2,3 7th inning the Dragons claimed a 11-4 win.

Patrick started and played the entire game at shortstop. He made several good plays in the field and made his first error of the year. It was a tough error, a bad bounce on a grounder that he knocked down, but was unable to throw the runner out. At the plate, he reached on an error with a similar hard grounder to short that took a bad hop. In his next at bat the game was tied and SLC had runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs. Patrick put down a great sac bunt to move the runners to 2nd and 3rd with 1 out. Unfortunately the next two guys struck out and the runners were stranded. He K'd in his last at bat.

So the tournament is over and the Dragons finished a disappointing 2-2-1 in the 5 games. Patrick played 24 of the 36 innings at shortstop and with at least 20 chances in the field made only the one error. For the tournament Patrick got 11 at bats, with 2 hits, 3 RBIs, 1 walk, 1 sacrifice, 1 reach on error, and 2 strike outs.

Round Rock Tournament - Day 2

The Dragons faced Round Rock HS at Dell Diamond on Friday afteroon at 1:00pm. It was a back and forth affair with SLC holding a 4-3 lead going into the bottom of the 7th. Two base hits to lead off the inning gave them runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs. An attempted sacrifice bunt turned into disaster for SLC as no one covered 1st base and the ball was thrown away scoring the runner from 2nd. With the score now tied at 4, the next batter was intentionally walked to load the bases with no outs. The infield and outfield were brought in to try and cut off the runner at home. A shallow pop up to left was not deep enough for the runners to advance. The middle infielders returned to normal depth to try and turn a double play to get out of the inning and into extras. A ground ball was hit to shortstop (Patrick) and was fielded cleanly..over to 2nd for one out, but the runner at 1st was called safe. It was a bang, bang play and could have gone either way. The run scored from 3rd and the game was over.

Patrick played the 6th and 7th innings and made 3 nice plays in the field. It seemed after he came in, every ball was hit to short. Unfortunately he struck out in his only at bat in the 7th inning with 2 runners on base with just 1 out.

The second game paired SLC with Judson HS. The Dragons got up early and never looked back taking a relatively easy 10-1 victory.

Patrick started the game and played the first 5 innings. He made several good plays in the field, one in particular going deep in the hole at short and throwing the runner out at 1st. At the plate, he had a single and RBI, and two deep fly balls to left...one of which was a warning track shot that turned into a long out. The weather for both games was incedible...sunny, a light breeze and 88 degrees.

Round Rock Tournament - Day 1

The regular season got underway with a 5 game tournament at various fields in the Austin, TX area. The opening two games for the Dragons were played at McNeil HS and the 1st game paired the Dragons with the home team. The Dragons got off to a quick start scoring 2 runs in the top of the 1st, but McNeil came back with a 6 spot in the bottom half powered by a grand slam. SLC held McNeil scoreless over the next 4 innings and cut the lead to 6-5 after 5 innings. Unfortunately McNeil scored 3 in the bottom of the 6th and SLC could not rally, losing the game 9-5.

Patrick was inserted at shortstop in the bottom of the 5th for defensive purposes. He played 2 innings in the field but did not get an at bat.

In the second game, SLC played Anderson HS. SLC got off to a fast start and led 6-0 after 3 innings. Anderson hung around and after 5 innings SLC led 7-4. SLC committed a big error in the bottom of the 6th, allowing a huge inning for Anderson. They wound up scoring 6 in the inning and took a 10-7 lead into the 7th. SLC hit a huge 3-run home run with two outs that tied the game at 10 in the 7th. The game went one extra inning with both teams pushing across 1 run. Due to tournament rules, the game ended in an 11-11 tie.

Patrick started the game at SS and played all 8 innings. He made a few good, tough plays in the field. He got 4 plate appearances: double driving in 2 runs, base on balls, fly to deep left (warning track with bases loaded...almost a GS but just a long out), and a pop up to 2nd. So his official line was 1 for 3 with 2 RBIs.

Texas State 5A Baseball Rankings

The Texas High School Baseball Coaches pre-season poll was just released and Southlake Carroll is currently ranked 4th in the State in 5A. Three of the top four teams are from District 6 (Coppell, Flower Mound and Southlake Carroll), which appears to be the toughest district in the State hands down.

CLASS 5A

1. Coppell
2. Houston Bellaire
3. Flower Mound
4. Southlake Carroll
5. Klein
6. Laredo United
7. Plano West
8. SA Reagan
9. Spring Branch
10. Katy