Warden can't hold leads

WARDEN — If high school baseball games were only six innings long, the Warden Cougars would have finished the weekend with a pair of nice wins over the visiting Connell Eagles.

Over the first six innings of two SCAC games played Saturday, Warden outscored the Eagles 10-4; with the biggest Connell scoring burst being a two-run double in the fifth inning of the first game.

Connell controlled the seventh inning against Warden, scoring a combined 10 runs in the seventh frame helping them defeat Warden 6-5 and 11-8 in two games Saturday.

"Our pitching kind of faltered," said Warden coach Dan Caballero. "We left stuff over the plate and they hit it. We didn't finish the game."

Warden took a 3-2 lead into the seventh inning of game one, but gave up four runs to fall behind 6-3. In the bottom half of the inning, a Kenny Guerra leadoff double followed by a Juve Salinas triple got a Warden rally started, but the Cougars' comeback attempt came up one run short.

"If we would have done our part, we would have had a chance to win," said the Warden coach.

Earlier in the game, both teams' defenses did just enough to keep the game scoreless. Each team put runners in scoring position in the first two innings, but neither could get the clutch base hit to score a run.

Connell loaded the bases in the third inning, but Warden pitcher Salinas got the Eagles' hitter to tap a ball out in front of the plate that he relayed to catcher Robert Pruneda for the force out at home to end the inning.

Warden opened the scoring in the third inning when Vincente Martinez lead off with a walk, advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored on a Salinas base hit back up the middle.

The Cougars added to their lead in the fourth inning, with Rigo Pruneda getting things going with a powerful line double to the fence in left-center field. With two out and Pruneda on second, Martinez hit a line drive over the center field fence that gave Warden a 3-0 lead.

The Eagles got two runs back in the fifth inning to make it 3-2, then rallied in the seventh inning for the victory.

The second game of the day was more of the same, but simply in more agonizing fashion.

The Cougars scored three runs in the first and two more in the second for an early 5-1 lead. Connell picked up a run in the fourth inning, but the Cougars responded with two more in the sixth to take a 7-2 lead into the seventh inning.

Connell once again caught fire in the seventh, this time scoring six runs to take an 8-7 lead. The Eagles loaded the bases with a base hit, a hit batsman and an error, then got a grand-slam home run to cut Warden's lead to one. Travis Matzen came on in relief of starter Arty Reyes, giving up two more runs before the inning was over.

The Cougars got the tying run in the bottom of the seventh to force extra innings, but the Eagles scored three more in the top of the eighth and blanked Warden in the bottom of the inning to win the game 11-8.

Travis Matzen had two home runs in the second game, while Robert Pruneda went 3 for 4 against the Eagles in game two.

"We just haven't been able to put the whole thing together yet," said Caballero. "Hopefully we learn from it and we can learn to finish."