By Moses Leos III and Spencer Spilman
For nine innings Saturday, the Hays Rebels and Pflugerville Panthers were deadlocked in the baseball equivalent of a staring match. The Rebels were the first to blink.
An RBI single from Panther Stephen Pena in the tenth inning broke a scoreless pitching duel as Pflugerville claimed a 1-0 win in game two of the best of three bidistrict playoff series.
With the win, Pflugerville sweeps Hays 2-0 in the series and eliminates the Rebels from the playoffs.
Despite the loss, Hays senior Mike Gonzales lauded the team’s effort to surpass expectations.
“A lot of people didn’t expect us to be here. We proved a lot of people wrong with the way we played,” Gonzales said. “We may not be the most talented group out there, but we have a lot of hard working guys.”
Pitching duels were the theme on the weekend. It began Thursday with Pflugerville edging Hays 3-2 in a thrilling game one affair.
Thursday’s game featured a pitching duel between Hays’ David Riojas and Pflugerville’s Johnny Panatex.
Riojas went the distance and pitched a complete game, while Panatex was taken out after 5.1 innings.
The game was scoreless until Rebel bats came alive in the fourth. Josh Burnett hit a leadoff single and was eventually brought home by a Mike Gonzales RBI single to put the first run on the board.
Hays added another run in the fifth inning. Hays’ Trey Dickerson hit an RBI single to bring Brandon Hunter across the plate after he started the inning with a leadoff base hit.
Trouble for the Rebels came in the top of the sixth inning when Pflugerville’s bats came alive. The Panthers used their speed on the base paths to manufacture runs.
It led to the Panthers scoring a run on a suicide squeeze bunt, with Pena scoring the go-ahead run from second base.
Hays was forced to rally in game two. But heavy rains in the area forced both teams to delay their game to Saturday.
The delay didn’t affect pitching, as Hays’ Trey Dickerson and Pflugerville’s Marcos Reyes dueled. Dickerson went 9.2 innings, while Reyes went seven.
But both pitchers kept the opposing offense in check.
Reyes flummoxed Hays batters by using an effective array of off-speed pitches. Hays head coach David Null said struggles to hit ground balls also played a factor. Hays was unable to limit pop-ups and fly balls into a stiff breeze.
“We were struggling in staying back long enough to stay on top of the ball,” Null said. “We were reaching a bit and he had great off speed stuff. He was effective today.”
Dickerson was equally effective, aggressively going after Pflugerville batters and limiting them to seven hits. He was helped out by a tenacious defense that battled past five errors on the day.
Hays’ defense came through in the eighth as the Rebels rectified a throwing error to gun down a potential game winning run at the plate.
An inning later, Hays’ third baseman Brandon Hunter turned a pivotal double play to close the bottom of the ninth.
“Our defense was amazing,” Dickerson said. “The underclassmen really stepped up in this game and showed great potential for next year. They did a hell of a job.”
But errors played a role in the demise of the Rebels in the tenth. An error with two outs allowed Pflugerville to extend the inning for Pena, who delivered a walk-off single to win the game.
For Null, the progression during the year, especially with a young infield, allowed Hays to answer unknown questions heading into the year.
“Most of those guys are young; we’re a young team,” Null said. “To see how they got better as the year progressed was a neat thing. There’s a very bright future for the Hays Rebels.”
