Baseball roundup for May 10 edition

AREA TEAMS INCLUDED: Holy Cross, South San, Southwest.

By Mike Considine

The Knights downed Austin Hill Country Christian Academy (10-17) 9-1 in a TAPPS Division III bi-district game May 2 at San Marcos.

TAPPS District 4-III co-champion Holy Cross (13-12, 6-2) extended its winning streak to five games and needed just one more victory to qualify for the state tournament. The Knights were scheduled to play Houston Cypress Christian (16-11-1) May 9 in the state quarterfinals.

Holy Cross pitchers Essiah Flores and Alex Zuniga held Hill Country Christian to two hits. Flores, who kept HCCA Knights scoreless until the bottom of the sixth, struck out 10. Zuniga recorded the final out after Flores reached his 110-pitch limit.

“Essiah pitched a great game,” first-year Knights coach Ed Solis said. “He threw a lot of strikes.”

Holy Cross scored the first nine runs, two each in the second and third innings and an insurmountable five in the sixth. The Knights finished with nine hits, including doubles from Danny Enriquez and Flores as well as a triple from Nate Trevino.

“The guys have bought into our new style of hitting,” Solis said. “We’ve just been hitting strikes and putting the ball in play.

“What really helped us (in the sixth) was that we laid down a couple of bunts, and they didn’t make plays. Then we advanced runners over and the guys got timely hits.”

Holy Cross shared the district title with Boerne Geneva (26-3, 6-2) but were the No. 2 seed because of head-to-head competition. The Knights edged Geneva 3-2 April 13 after losing 21-1 to the Eagles March 24.

South San hot streak carries it through tie-breaker game

The Bobcats (18-10, 9-5) carried a seven-game winning streak into the Class 5A playoffs after defeating Southwest (18-9, 9-5) 5-4 in a District 28-5A fourth-place tie-breaker game April 27 at Jourdanton.

The program, which has won seven state championships, qualified for the postseason for the first time since reaching the area round in 2019. Southwest also was seeking its first playoff appearance since 2019.

South San was scheduled to play a best-of-three series against 27-5A champion MacArthur in bi-district round.

Southwest took the lead against the Bobcats in the top of the second inning, but South San answered with two runs in its half of the inning and stretched its lead to 3-2 in the fourth.

The Dragons regained the lead with three runs in the fifth. South San tallied the tying and winning runs in the sixth and held Southwest scoreless in the top of the seventh.

A pair of freshmen were South San’s leading hitters. Alex Roman was 1-for-2 with a double and two RBIs. Ernest Garcia also went 1-for-2 with two RBIs.

Jasiah Carraman contributed a double and drove in a run. Marcus Kela scored two runs.