Since the game against the First Academy Royals where the Harmony Longhorns were shutout 12-0, Harmony’s Varsity Boys Baseball team has bounced back and tacked on two nice wins. The first last Friday against 4-0 at St. Cloud and the second win on Monday at home where they took out Lake Nona 5-4. But, let’s still take a look back at March 22nd, when the Longhorns got dominated at home  by First Academy from Orlando – a big loss that looks to have motivated the Longhorns a bit.

 At the end of the day, it will go down as a 12-0 defeat for the Longhorns.  But even in the lopsided defeat on March 22, Harmony Head Coach Heath Williams found some positives in the contest against the highly ranked First Academy Royals.

“For a lot of the game, we had four freshmen on the field,” Williams said after the game.  “Their starter no hit us last year and I thought we have some good at-bats against him tonight.  Walks and a couple of misplayed balls really hurt us tonight but I think we can still take some positives from the game.”

Starting Longhorn pitcher Caden Scarborough was forced to exit the game after just eight pitches when he experienced tightness in his pitching arm.  Scarborough, who came into the game with a 1-1 record and a 2.62 ERA, struck out the first hitter he faced before walking the second batter on four straight pitches before exiting the game.

“Hopefully it’s nothing but we certainly didn’t want to take any chances with him,” Williams said of his ace.  Sophomore Ashton Mogorrian would replace Scarborough and would have got out of the inning unscathed but a throwing error led to three unearned runs.

The Royals (11-0 on the season and ranked third in the state in Class 3A) would extend the lead to 4-0 in the third on a double by Riley Parker and a RBI single Tyler Rondon.  

In the meantime, Isaac Sewell was keeping the Longhorns in check. He would push his record to 3-0 on the season by working five innings – allowing two hits, striking out six and walking just one.  For the season, he has not allowed a run and has struck out 27 and walked just two in 19 innings of work.

Still, the Longhorns managed to put runners in scoring position twice in the first three innings.  In the second with one out, Yathaniel Matos reached on an error and Brad Meza followed with a single.  Brad Bartlett struck out but Conner Davis walked to load the bases.  Sewell would get out of the inning by striking out Nixon Rodriguez.  Harmony put a runner on second with one out in the third, but Sewell retired Sam Castillo and Gabriel Castro on fly outs to end the inning.

TFA would end any chance of a Harmony comeback with a three-spot in the fifth.  Riley’s RBI double and a two-run single by Matt Perez drove in the runs in the inning.  The Royals added two more in the sixth with Rondo driving in both runs with a single.  Harrison Miller struck out three and allowed one hit in working the final two innings of scoreless relief for the Royals.

For the game TFA pounded out nine hits and took advantage of eight walks and two errors.  Harmony dropped to 3-6 on the season and will face St. Cloud on Friday night. “Hopefully this game will be a learning experience for our young team,” Williams added. “TFA is an outstanding team that we are scheduled to play again later this season.”