Struggles at the plate lead to Cardinals’ loss

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SHINER — A long break as well as inclement weather can have an effect on the game of baseball. For Shiner St. Paul, those elements proved to be a factor as they lost to the New Braunfels Christian Academy Wildcats Tuesday 6-2.

“Down here in Shiner you never see any kind of precipitation hardly and in baseball it’s huge,” Cardinals’ head coach Derrick Neelley noted. “You get a little bit of wind, a little bit of rain and that ball gets slick. It gets to you. I can feel it all day, kind of feeling gloomy. With these guys I don’t think that’s a big problem. It just might be, you know, just being able to get out there. We haven’t been able to practice very much because of the rain so we’re just trying to work with them. I can’t say I’m satisfied with the way we played but I am proud to be a Cardinal still.”

Senior Marco Ynclan took to the mound and struggled early on, walking the first two batters of the game. A throwing error by the catcher as well as a sacrifice fly out deep to right field plated the two, giving the Wildcats the 2-0 lead.

“[Ynclan is] definitely a great player, I’d give him that,” Neelley said. “It’s just all the walks at the beginning of the inning. We need to work on filling it up at the very first pitch until the game is over.”

Ynclan would walk five batters in the first three innings, striking out four.

Meanwhile, at the plate, the Cardinals struggled to get base runners as the team combined for just three hits. However, they were able to force the Wildcats’ pitcher to throw a lot of balls, especially with the amount of times St. Paul fouled off.

“It didn’t show in the scoreboard but we did put the bat on the ball more tonight than what we’ve [done in the past],” Neelley said. “That’s a great positive. That’s always a great step forward being able to at least put the bat on the ball. The next thing we have is being able to get on base and make those hits count.”

At the bottom of the third the Cardinals took advantage of some wild throws and errors by New Braunfels Christian Academy.

With one out on the board, Conor Kresta was hit by a pitch and later advanced to third on a double by Nathan Pilat. During Weston Davis’ at bat, both Kresta and Pilat scored on two different wild throws by the pitcher. Those two runs represented the Cardinals’ lone scores of the night.

Back on the mound, Ynclan found the strike zone and struck out eight batters in the fourth, fifth and sixth inning while giving up just one hit and one run.

“If something negative happens you get down on yourself and it’s hard to get yourself back up,” Neelley said, “I feel like we kind of pushed through it a little bit towards the end but it’s just how the game is.”

Unfortunately, the run support wasn’t there as the Cardinals’ batters combined for just one hit with one walk, one hit by pitch and four strikeouts those three innings.

At the top of the seventh, Ynclan gave up two walks and a double, resulting in three more runs for the Wildcats.

“[In] small school[s] you don’t have many options,” Neelley explained. “[Ynclan] gets tired, we do work him a lot being one of our top pitchers right now, maybe I can put it on me, he may be overworked.”

Trying to push through a complete game is going to be key for the Cardinals, Neelley noted, especially with the depth that’s on the team currently.

Down 6-2, the Cardinals were able to get some base runners at the bottom of the seventh but ultimately could not plate another player, losing by that four-run margin.

“Tonight’s game [was] just kind of mental,” Neelley said. “We have the plaeyrs to do it, we hae the fielders, we have the hitters. It’s just in their minds they have to know they can do it and that’s just the struggle for all of us, that’s just being human.”

Nonetheless the head coach knows that there were many things the team did well that they can point to, such as fighting those long at bats against the opposing pitcher. Now the Cardinals, who move to 0-2 in district, must put everything together to get their first district win of the season.

Shiner St. Paul travels to San Marcos to take on Hill Country Christian with first pitch scheduled at 4:30 p.m.

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