Marble Falls baseball beats Lago Vista to win another district series

CAPTION: Marble Falls pitcher Bryce Atkinson had another excellent outing in leading the Mustangs to another win against Lago Vista. Photo by Priscilla Gonzalez

The Marble Falls High School baseball team shut out Lago Vista 10-0 April 11 in a contest that ended after 4.5 innings.

The win ensures the Mustangs earned another District 24-4A series to remain atop of the standings, a spot they share with Burnet though the Bulldogs’ game against Georgetown Gateway was moved to April 12 at 6 p.m. at Bulldog Diamonds because umpires didn’t show up.

“It was good baseball,” Marble Falls head coach Tyler Porter said. “We just got to keep it rolling. Lago Vista is a good team.”

The Mustangs scored a run in the second inning thanks to Bryce Atkinson, who ran home from third when the catcher tried to pick him off and overthrew the third baseman.

That launched an offensive avalanche that kept pouring: three runs in the third thanks to a two-RBI double from Isaias Roman and Cale Cochran scoring from third on a pass ball for a 4-0 lead and six runs in the fourth after two outs.

Evan Nickowski was the instigator by going to first after he was hit by a pitch. He then went to second on a pass ball. Jake Carter, Cochran and Roman each drew walks. Then Atkinson hit a two-RBI single followed by a RBI single by Canon Cochran and a two-RBI single by Davis Dreisbach.

By the time the inning ended, Lago Vista changed pitchers twice while facing 10 Marble Falls batters.

Roman led with 3 RBIs off 2 hits, while Dreisbach and Atkinson each had 2 RBIs.

Meanwhile, pitcher Atkinson (2-1) was consistently good. He faced a total of 16 batters and struck out one while throwing only 63 pitches. He was named the player of the game.

“He’s been working on being more consistent throwing strikes,” Porter said. “Our perfect (ideal) inning is throwing 13 pitches (per inning). That was very economical.”

Roman noted Atkinson has been one of several contributing Mustang pitchers, adding when they’re throwing strikes, the defenders want to do their part by making routine and extraordinary plays.

“Our pitching has been very good this season,” Roman said. “It’s exciting, for our pitchers especially. When they make the catch, it’s a boost. There’s an amount of effort they put into those plays, especially the diving plays.”

He added those incredible defensive plays fire up the Mustangs and chip at the opposition’s will to win.

Porter agreed.

“They dominated the routine play,” he said. “Those (diving) plays are the great plays. And we don’t have to have those if we make the routine plays.”

It also helps that Marble Falls is producing runs. After his at-bat, Roman talked to Atkinson to tell him what he saw from the pitcher.

“Our bats are backing them up,” the catcher said. “(We talk to them) to give the next batter a better chance. We tell him what it looks like. We want to give them a little more confidence. We didn’t worry about hitting the ball hard; we just want to pass the bat.”

Lago Vista used three pitchers who allowed four hits but granted the Mustangs eight free bases. Add in the Vikings’ three errors and most of the Mustangs’ runs were unearned.

“We were taking what the pitchers were giving us,” Roman said.

The third game of the series is at 7 p.m. Friday, April 14, at Lago Vista.

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