The Onalaska Wildcats defeated the Livingston Lions in a 2-1 decision for local bragging rights Monday night at the Livingston Baseball Complex.
With the first round of the playoffs beginning this weekend, both teams were getting ready for their bi-district matchups.
Over the last 7 years, a handful of boys from both teams have been teammates on various teams. Thad Lilley, Luke Jones, Carlos Valerio, Cole Barrow, Jed Harrison, and Jacob Collier played together at Texas Slam. Lilley, Jones, Valerio, Harrison, Damorian Hill, and Rudy Marquez played with or against each other in LYBA on league teams and all-star teams. Lilley, Jones, and Valerio played together on Elite Squad, a travel team out of Lufkin. Monday was a chance to be together on the baseball field one final time.
“You just want your guys to go out there and have competitive reps like this. We’ve been able to do that, luckily,” Onalaska coach Cody Pinkert said. “Livingston is a really good baseball team. I know that and (the Wildcat team) know that. That is why they were so fired up today. We’ve had some tight games, like against Anderson-Shiro in district, where we can hang around and come up to get you in the end.”
Pinkert said the game versus Anderson-Shiro, as well as wins over Coldspring and now Livingston has provided confidence.
“It was huge,” Pinkert said. “Anderson has been the class of our district for a long time. We respect them a lot and to be honest, they embarrassed us the first time we played them. They beat us 9-4 at their place and we were really not happy about that. Despite the fact that it really didn’t matter to us as far as standings, we felt like we had something to prove because they had manhandled us.”
Livingston struck in the bottom of the first. Marquez reached base on a Wildcat error, followed by Valerio’s stand-up double. A passed ball let Marquez score and Valerio move to third. The Lion cleanup hitter, Karter Nelson, hit a frozen rope to the Wildcat third baseman, Ty Phillips, who caught the ball and doubled up Valerio at third. After the first inning, Livingston held a 1-0 lead.
The starting hurlers for both teams were dialed in and pitched fantastic. Lilley was on the bump for the Wildcats. He gave up a hit, a walk, and an unearned run across four innings. Jarrett Purkerson pitched two innings, allowing two hits and two walks. Patrick Roth pitched the seventh inning for Onalaska, and struck out two while allowing nothing. The Lion starter, Cole Barrow, was dominant, pitching four innings and allowing only a hit, while striking out nine. Valerio pitched 1.2 innings, and Jones pitched 1.1 for the Lions.
“It’s a tune-up game and that is why we did it,” Livingston coach David Miller said. “We wanted to get guys in and get guys some at bats. I told these guys before the game that for some of them, the way they play in this game will determine how many innings they get Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Cole had been struggling a little bit on the mound and he came out and did exactly what I needed to see from him. He threw strikes and filled the zone up and battled out there. He earned some innings this weekend. We had some guys that had some OK at-bats, but we weren’t locked in like we needed to be and I think we took them a little too lightly.”
The score remained 1-0 until the top of the sixth, when Wyatt Reyes hit a two-out double for the Wildcats, then stole third base. Jake Gibson was hit by a pitch and stole second, putting the go-ahead run in scoring position. Reyes and Gibson both scored on an infield single by Roth, putting Onalaska up 2-1. The Lions couldn’t muster anything more on offense and the Wildcats got the one-run win.
“At the end of the day, that right there should not decide the game,” Miller said of the infield hit. “We made every little play but one. Offensively, we need to step up and find a way. I tried to do a few things with hit-and-run and we had guys thrown out at second trying to be aggressive and making something happen.”
The Lions’ Valerio went 2-for-3 with a double and T.J. Garner went 1-for-3. The Wildcats’ Reyes went 1-for-3 and scored a run, Lilley went 1-for-3, and Roth went 1-for-3 with two RBIs.
Pinkert believes his team is peaking at the right time. A successful run on the hardwood has delayed that process a bit.
“We had half of our team in basketball and they made it all the way to the state semifinals,” Pinkert said. “It has taken us longer than usual to get into a groove. I think we are just now hitting that at this point. So, it is really good to see.”
Onalaska’s first-round playoff matchup is a series against the Boling Bulldogs. Livingston’s first-round opponent is the Northside Panthers in a best-of-three series.
