CAMERON— While the A&M Consolidated baseball team’s bats took time to heat up, starting pitcher Will Hargett was lights out from the first pitch of Friday’s bi-district matchup with Killeen Chaparral.
Hargett limited the Bobcats to just a run on two hits and a walk with 10 strikeouts over six innings as the Tigers scored four runs in the last two innings of the Tigers’ 5-1 win at The Yards of Cameron.
The series sweep advances Consol to the area round of the playoffs for the second year in a row.
Chaparral matched the Tigers early with a strong start of their own from Aiden Hurst, holding the Tigers to three runs, two earned, in 5.1 innings of work on three hits, two walks and a strike out. Consol managed the game’s lone run of the first five frames on third baseman Nathan Hodge’s RBI sacrifice fly in the third, taking advantage of an error by the Bobcats that kept the inning alive.
People are also reading…
“Their guy did a pretty good job, our guys didn’t start the game,” Consol coach Ryan Lennerton said. “It was a little frustrating, but thank god for Will Hargett. [He] kept us in the game. “What a stud.”
Carrying a 1-0 lead into the top of the sixth, the Tigers added several insurance runs over the final stretch to take the load off of Hargett’s shoulders.
Kai Hood led off the sixth with a single before turning on the jets to race home on catcher Trey Walker’s single two batters later. A throwing error by the Chaparral catcher drew pinch runner Klayton Kurtz to third and first baseman Bradley Boedeker’s sacrifice fly brought him home.
Right fielder Pablo Chu’s RBI single at the bottom of the sixth cut in to the Bobcats’ deficit to 3-1, but Hood’s two-run double in the seventh gave the Tigers their largest lead of the night.
“We were just seeing the ball a little bit better and passing it to the next guy,” Hodge said. “It’s less pressure [during a slow start] because we know [Hargett]’s gonna go out there and put up a zero every inning, we need to get going a little bit faster though.”
The Bobcats put just two runners on in the first five innings, while the Tigers left four runners on base. With a fourth inning single, first baseman Geno Ybarra was the only batter to figure out Hargett and his mix of pitches.
“What was working for me was probably my curveball,” Hargett said. “I was able to land it since the start and just kept locating it. “It was probably my best pitch tonight.”
Hargett’s night came to a close after the sixth as Wally Bockelmann earned the call out of the bullpen. Consol’s go-to closer struggled with command early on with a four-pitch walk to open the frame, eliciting a mound visit from Lennerton.
The discussion proved effective, as Bockelmann responded with a 1-6-3 double play on a light grounder to him at the mound. Two batters later, he capped the victory with a called strikeout.
“I just tried to get him to relax a little bit and get the ball in the strike zone,” Lennerton said. “Wally’s a good pitcher, he just needed to get the ball in the zone.”
The Tigers now turn to the area round of the postseason next week, taking on Pflugerville Hendrickson. Last year, Consol’s season came to a close in the area round in a three-game set to Georgetown.
“We just need to compete a little bit harder,” Hodge said. “The teams are going to be better than that. Let’s just have better at-bats, keep passing it to the next guy, get on, get him over and score runs.”
Get in the game with our Prep Sports Newsletter
Send weekly directly to your inbox!
