Pick your poison against the San Jacinto (Texas) College-North baseball team — there’s no way to pitch around the Gators, and, at least in the Alpine Bank Junior College World Series, there’s no way to pitch to them.
San Jac put on another impressive display at the plate Tuesday night, pounding out 15 hits, 12 for extra bases, to defeat Western Nevada Community College 12-5 to advance to tonight’s showdown of the tournament’s unbeatens against Chipola (Fla.) College.
“Obviously we missed some locations, but they took advantage,” Western Nevada coach D.J. Whittemore said. “You’ve got to tip your cap to them.”
“One through nine (our batters) can put the ball in the gap,” San Jacinto catcher Kyle Henson said.
He would know as well as anyone. He put three balls in play in the form of doubles and put another one out of play — over the left-field fence.
The Gators hit eight doubles and four home runs.
Trailing 2-1, San Jac got it going in the third inning on Eric Fry’s two-run double down the right-field line.
One inning later, Kevin Kelso doubled home Henson, who had doubled to open the inning. Kris Miller then belted a towering home run to left to put San Jac ahead 6-3.
Jeremy Barfield doubled in the fifth and Taylor Hammond traded places with him by doubling to the right-center gap.
“We’ve got good power hitters, we’ve got good contact hitters,” Henson said.
“We try to create the bat path that allows us to hit to all fields,” San Jac coach Tom Arrington said.
The plate wasn’t the only place where the Gators shined. Starting pitcher Lucas Luetge (8-0) pitched into the ninth inning, allowing nine hits but giving up only five runs.
“Once we had a big lead, they started calling more fastballs and we just tried to minimize mistakes,” Luetge said. His goal at that point: “Keep the ball down and throw strikes.”
His stint — two batters into the ninth — was his longest of the season.
“I was just trying to save the bullpen,” he said of his 144-pitch night.
Arrington wants his pitchers to go deeper in the game during the tournament.
“We want to stretch pitchers,” he said. “They’ll be better their next time out. There’s a tradeoff there.”
The Gators began their conference season 3-6 this year.
Whittemore said his scouting reports indicated San Jac finished fifth in its Region XIV South Conference batting statistics.
“If these guys finished fifth in their conference, I don’t know what conference they’re in — the AL East?” Whittemore said.
“We knew we had the players,” Henson said. “(It was) just finding a way to mesh together.”
They’re meshing well right now.
“They just want to swing it and win ballgames,” Arrington said.
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Kent Mincer can be reached via e-mail at kmincer@gjds.com.
