Errors Hurt Dogs..Article

[KFDM COOP]

Bears feast on Bulldog bumbles

HOUSTON -- The Nederland Bulldogs didn't want to play one-game rounds in the playoffs, but they played two and won them both.

If only this playoff round had been a one-gamer.

Nederland won Thursday's opener of the Region III-4A quarterfinal series, but Montgomery won the ones after that, finishing off a two-games-to-one series win by blasting the Bulldogs 13-4 Saturday afternoon at North Shore High School.

Senior Andrew Clarke, who earned Game 3 victories a year ago as Montgomery advanced to state with do-or-die playoff wins against Little Cypress-Mauriceville, Houston Waltrip and Brenham, pitched six innings of five-hit, four-run ball to lead the Bears, who are now 25-8.

They advance to face Channelview in the Region III-4A semifinals next week.

Nederland committed an uncharacteristic five errors, making nine of Montgomery's runs of the unearned kind, and ended its season at 20-9 overall.

"We made too many mistakes against a team like that at this point in the season," Bulldog coach Cody Robbins said. "I felt like we battled hard, though.

"We battled all season long. I thought it was a good run. I can't be more proud of the guys."

Montgomery tagged Aaron Dalton and Alex Moshier, Nederland's fourth and fifth pitchers of the series, with a total of 15 hits. The duo was pitching in a game for the first time in about a month.

And to be fair, many of those hits came after innings should have been over.

The infield at North Shore appeared to be in poor shape and bad hops off the rock-hard dirt were frequent. Nederland's usually sure-handed shortstop, Chris Laird, had trouble staying on his feet early and was charged with four errors.

Bear first baseman Bobby Stone and center fielder Davis Schroeder each had three hits to pace Montgomery's offense, with Stone driving in a team-high three runs.

Right fielder Micah Mosley -- 2 for 4 with 2 RBIs -- led the Bulldogs.

The Bears sent 23 batters to the plate in the first three innings, scoring three runs in each frame for a 9-0 lead. With a Nederland error in each inning, only two of those runs were earned.

The Bulldogs got to Clarke in the bottom of the third after loading the bases on singles by Dalton and Laird and Clarke's pitch that hit Jake Speed.

Mosley knocked in a pair of runs with a single to left and Matison Smith made it 9-3 with an RBI groundout.

Aaron McFarland led off the fourth with a chopper in front of home plate and was crossing the first base bag when the throw from catcher Chase Moore sailed wide, sending McFarland to second. He took third on Moshier's grounder and was awarded home when Clarke balked, cutting the Bear lead to 9-4.

Montgomery scored two earned runs in the fifth on RBI singles by Moore and Stone, and two unearned runs in the sixth when Michael Heard hit a wind-blown homer after a two-out error.

"Andrew did an outstanding job of keeping them off-balance and we were as focused as I've seen us in a long time," Bear coach Clint Heard said. "We were focusing on one thing today: coming out of here with a win."

Heard and Schroeder greeted Dalton, the Bulldog starter, with singles to start the game. After Laird booted Moore's grounder, Seth Hill got the Bears on the board with a two-run single and Matt Johnson followed with a two-out RBI single.

With two outs in the second, Laird fell while fielding Moore's grounder and Stone followed with a two-run double. Stone then scored on Michael Ghutzman's high-hopper to left.

In the third, Moshier relieved Dalton with the bases loaded. One run scored on a passed ball, the other two when Speed, after a long run after a wind-blown flyball, whiffed on the catch.

"We weren't going to throw a no-hitter against Montgomery. They're a good ballclub," Robbins said.

"We've given up hits all year long. But we've played solid defense."

[Lonewolf]

Still a great season. Alot of teams didn't get that far. Good run. Good luck to ALL the Seniors and Good luck to the returning underclassmen for next year.