Heating up: Suncoast baseball's offense finding its groove with districts looming

RIVIERA BEACH – You’ve got to walk before you can run.

As baseball games go, Suncoast did plenty of both during Thursday’s cross-county matchup with Treasure Coast, chasing starter Logan Zavala before the second inning was over en route to a 6-2 win.

Three weeks ago, Suncoast head coach Jimmy Beno expressed the Chargers’ affinity for pitching and defense, labeling two strengths out of three phases of the game.

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But Thursday’s win was the latest in a series of performances where the Suncoast bats have come alive – and Beno acknowledged that the evasive third phase of their program might just be finding its groove at the right time.

“This is the time of the year you want the offense to be coming around,” Beno said. “I think the last couple of games, we made a couple small changes in the lineup that have really kind of paid off. And I think we’re kind of hitting on cylinders when we want to be hitting on cylinders.”

Plenty of praise has fallen the way of Brady Benevides – and deservedly so, both for his arm and his bat – and the junior added to his own hype train with a bases-loaded double that scored three runs, the last of which cruised into home plate off a throwing error in the bottom of the second.

Paired with an elite 2.00 team earned run average, Suncoast’s early-season success was also founded on the bottom of the order finding the barrel of the bat.

Only just recently is the heart of the order really starting to fill out the lineup.

“As our two, three, four, five guys go, our team goes,” Beno said. “At the beginning of the year, those guys, who all had phenomenal years last year, started off slow. We were fortunate at the beginning of the year that the bottom half carried us, quite frankly. That middle of the lineup has caught up a bit, and that’s good news for us.”

Lee Ellis, in particular, has “caught fire,” tallying multi-hit hit games in his last three games, providing a spark for the Chargers with districts looming.

“Definitely just putting in the work,” Ellis said. “Just trusting it, knowing the outcome is going to come and having fun with it.”

Solid contact is one thing, but the Chargers are also displaying impressive patience at the plate, working counts, making pitchers work.

Suncoast drew five walks in the second inning alone on Thursday, tacking on more as the game progressed. Forcing the Treasure Coast pitching staff to work for every out quickly became a grind that paid off.

Having hitters like Ellie and Co. creating dangerous at-bats for opposing pitchers is at once a relief and a motivator for a Chargers staff that has been lights-out all season long.

With the rotation broadening before playoffs to generate more rest, Hayden Neihoff was given a spot start – and he delivered against a dangerous lineup on Thursday.

Tallying seven punchouts in five innings of one-run ball, Neihoff pitched what Beno called “a hell of a game,” but Neihoff expressed that pitching with a lead makes it that much easier.

“I think it’s great to go out there and know that if you do your job, you’ve already got runs on the board,” Neihoff said. “We’re a fun group and we have a lot of energy and it makes you want to hit and score some runs and win a ball game.”

They did just that on Thursday, and with the offense looking like it is, there are certainly more to come.   

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Suncoast baseball's offense finding its rhythm as districts approach