Seymour’s baseball team scored five runs in the second inning to take a 6-1 lead against Borden and rolled to a 10-2 win Tuesday afternoon at American Legion Field.
After the Braves took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, the Owls tied the game in the bottom of the inning when Satoshi Hirose doubled and scored on a fielder’s choice by Seth Maki.
The Owls batted around in the second inning and bunched five hits and a walk to score five runs.
Alan Perry had a two-run double, Hirose had a two-run single, and Jorge Vega drove in the other run with a single. Tyler Bloom had a double and Alex Helt had a single in the inning.
Tyler Bloom led off the third inning with a single, Perry walked and both scored on a hard-hit ball off the second baseman’s glove for an 8-1 score.
Borden used four walks to score a run in the top of the fifth.
Seymour added two runs in the bottom of the fifth when Keenan Bohall walked, Hirose singled, Maki walked with the bases loaded to force in Bohall, and Hirose scored on a balk.
Hirose had two singles and a double, four RBI and scored two runs, Bryce Carpenter had a hit and scored three runs, Perry had a double, scored two runs and had two RBI, and Maki had a triple and two RBI.
Nine Owls combined for the 12 hits, and Coach Jeremy Richey said he was pleased to see his team swing some hot bats.
“Our offense has been a lot better lately,” he said. “I think we’re finally getting comfortable at the plate. I think our speed dictated a lot of that. The balls we ran out, and Seth Maki keeps running into the ball and had another triple tonight. Our lineup has been much better the last week and a half, and we’re excited about that going into the conference tournament next week.”
Bloom pitched the first five innings and allowed both runs, gave up five hits, struck out seven and walked five.
The inning he walked the run in, he got out of a jam by having Travis Konermann hit a line drive to second baseman Hirose, who flipped the ball to shortstop Perry to double the runner off second base for the double play.
Perry finished up and had four strike outs and walked one.
Bloom had at least one strike out each inning, and Richey said he felt like Bloom was effective in preventing the Braves from having a big inning.
“That is one of the things we keep talking to Tyler about because his last two or three outings he has not given up a lot of runs, but we can’t get him deeper,” Richey said. “We’ve got to get him throwing more strikes.
“The good news is, he’s got good stuff to get out of it, but if we can keep him from putting people on, he’s going to be more effective in time, and then we can get him through six maybe, and then get him into a complete game. He battles, and then Alan came in and threw a couple nice innings.”
The Owls (9-5) will travel to Floyd Central on Thursday.
“(Borden) is a good baseball team that won 10 games with a lot of lefties,” Richey said. “We came out there with both of our guys being righties. I thought they did a nice job of mixing speeds and keeping the left-handers off their speed because they didn’t barrel a lot of balls up, and that was good for our pitching staff.”