Rouse heads to a series-deciding Game 3 in Class 5A regional final after dropping Game 2
SAN ANTONIO — The good news for Rouse is the season isn’t over.
Little went right for the Raiders — and luck wasn’t on their side — during a sloppy 6-5 loss to Boerne Champion on Friday in Game 2 of their Class 5A regional championship series at Wolff Stadium.
It set up a series-deciding Game 3 Saturday back at Wolff. The winner will advance to the state tournament.
“For a regional final, I was disappointed with some of the focus and poor play,” said Rouse coach Chad Krempin, whose team committed three errors, left eight men stranded and grounded into two double plays. “We seemed to be nonchalant on a few plays to me, or maybe it was something out of our control like (sun) glare? But it just came down to mistakes.”
All of Rouse’s errors came during the bottom of the second when Champion tallied five runs. A walk, an error and Nic Cortez’s bloop single to right pushed across one run. Two more throwing errors led to three runs before Cameron Logan’s RBI single capped the scoring.
“There were two outs with nobody on — and then they scored five runs,” Krempin said. “That kind of sums up the whole game, really.”
Rouse, which took a 1-0 lead in the first on Oscar Salazar’s RBI single, answered with four runs in its half of the third to tie the contest. Landon Miller, Kaden Kaspar and Salazar drew walks, then Colin Correjo was hit by a pitch to drive in one run.
Two batters later, Nolan Harris’ slow grounder between the pitcher and the first baseman allowed two runners to score. The tying run came in when Joe Sparschu walked and sprinted to second on a passed ball as Harris bolted home on the throw to second.
But the Raiders, who won the series opener 9-3 Thursday, left the bases loaded in the inning and stranded two runners in the fifth.
“I thought we showed some immaturity at the plate that I didn’t think we’d show at this point in the year,” Krempin said. “We had some great opportunities to drive in the winning run and couldn’t get a clutch hit. … We had some poor at-bats with runners in scoring position.”
Champion (32-11-1) pushed across the winning run in the fifth on a single, two walks and Jared Wingo’s infield single down the third-base line.
Rouse (30-11-1), whose eight-game postseason winning streak was snapped, may get a mulligan Saturday, but Krempin knows his team will have to execute better if it wants to make its second state tournament in three years.
“We’ve got to throw strikes and hopefully get some breaks making plays,” said Krempin, who has plenty of arms available after using only three pitchers in the series. “If we can keep the walks and errors to three and under, I think our pitchers will do a good job. We need to have quality at-bats and go about our business.”
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Rouse plays Game 3 Saturday for shot to go to state
