Mustangs beat Bandys Trojans 3-1

Ray Gora / Lincoln Times-News
East Lincoln sophomore Carson Philemon dives back to third base against Bandys on Monday.

East Lincoln completes regular-season sweep with victory

MICHAEL GEBELEIN
Sports Editor

DENVER — The East Lincoln Mustangs varsity baseball team completed a regular-season sweep of the Bandys Trojans with a 3-1 victory on Monday, just three days after defeating the Trojans 6-5 on Friday.
East Lincoln scored all three of its runs off Bandys left-hander Hayden Deal. A two-run, two-out double in the bottom of the first by East Lincoln catcher Austin Buchanan on a 1-1 count scored Darin Salter and Danny Sullivan to give the Mustangs a 2-0 lead that they held for the rest of the game.
The Mustangs have now taken wins over Deal and Bandys right-hander Hunter Harvey, two of the top pitchers in the area, which East Lincoln head coach Chris Matile said will pay off later in the year.
“When we get into conference play our kids are going to know that they haven’t seen anything better than that,” he said. “We stayed aggressive and put some pressure on their defense. We should have scored some more runs. When we get into conference play we have to finish teams off.”
Bandys closed the gap to 2-1 in the top of the third. Seth Hubbard hit a one-out triple to deep right field and was called safe at home on a sacrifice fly by short stop Harvey.
East Lincoln scored its final run in the bottom of the third. Salter led off by reaching first base on a dropped third strike, stole second and moved to third on a wild pitch. Salter scored on a single up the middle by senior first baseman and Western Carolina signee Addison Parrish.
East Lincoln second baseman Cory Petersen put runners at the corners by beating a throw from Harvey at short stop but pitcher Nick Savoie struck out to end the inning.
East Lincoln won a defensive battle that lasted through the rest of the game and forced Bandys to leave five runners on base.
Savoie earned the win on the mound for East Lincoln in four innings of work with four strikeouts, one run and three hits.
Sullivan pitched in the fifth and sixth innings and had one strikeout with one hit and no runs.
Parrish picked up his first save of the year in the top of the seventh innings with one strikeout and one hit.
“We got a few pitches up and we paid for it,” Matile said, “but the good thing is that we were able to get out of those sticky situations because we had sound pitching and sound defense.”