By: J. Daniel Pearson
Sophomore lefthander Trevin Bean threw four innings of one-hit ball and Samuel Castillo scored three runs as the Harmony won their 11th straight game with an 8-0 shutout of rival Osceola on Friday night.
Since a 5-3 season-opening loss to Rockledge, the Longhorns have been on a heater. During the 11-game winning streak Harmony has averaged almost 10 runs a game and has out-scored the opposition 108-34 in the process.
“I would never downplay an 11-game winning streak, because that’s hard to do in any level of baseball,” Harmony coach Heath Williams said. “Still, I don’t think we have started to scratch our potential. Our focus and intensity is not where it needs to be, but we are getting the results. Tonight, I felt it was our most complete game of the season.”
The performance started with its pitching.
Bean, just a sophomore, was outstanding – allowing just one hit in his start – striking out five. He pitched out of a first and second with no outs situation in the second inning and after giving up back-to-back walks with out in the fourth retired the next two batters to keep the shutout going.
He was one of four Harmony pitchers to combine in the shutout. Alex Lebron struck out two in his 1+ innings of work, Castillo inherited one of Lebron’s runners in the sixth but pitched a perfect inning and Ismael Rivera struck out the side after allowing a leadoff single in the seventh.
All told, Harmony pitchers combined on a two-hitter with 11 strikeouts.
“Although he is young, we have been throwing Trevin in big games because we are going to need him this season. We wanted to put him in big games early and he is responding well to that pressure,” Williams said. “The emergence of freshman outfielder Jayden Perez is going to allow us to use Castillo on the mound, which will give us another pitching weapon.”
An All-OBC selection, Co-player of the Year and four-year starter in the outfield, Castillo did not pitch last year. Perez, who did not play Friday, is hitting .400 in nine games this season and is an excellent defensive outfielder. “We could have used Castillo on the mound last year, but he was simply too important to take out of center,” Williams said. “It’s sort of scary, but Jayden reminds me a lot of a young Castillo and as he gains experience, I believe it will allow us to pitch Sam when we need him.”
Offensively, Harmony did more than enough to roll to the win.
Castillo reached base three times and scored three runs, including the first of the game after a first-inning double.
Sebastian Tabares keyed a three-run third with a two RBI double and the Longhorns tacked on two more runs in the fourth as the Longhorns took advantage of a walk, error, a RBI single by Westin Thompson and a sacrifice fly by Angel Medina to take a 7-0 lead.
Although happy with the early results, Williams says this week’s schedule will give him a better picture of where his team stands. “We put together a really competitive schedule we like to play, but some of better opponents early on our schedule are having down years,” Williams said. “This week we have Lake Nona, a huge rivalry game with St. Cloud and a tough road game against a good Eau Gallie team. It’s going to be a challenging week.”
Lake Nona, who will play at Harmony on Tuesday, is 10-5 and ranked 18th in the state in Class 7A. St. Cloud is 6-4 and will host the Longhorns on Thursday after a tough 3-2 loss to Harmony earlier in the season; while Eau Gallie is ranked in the top 20 in Class 4A and sports a 6-3 record.
Osceola fell to 2-6 with the loss and will have a chance to rebound this week with a road game against Boone on Monday; before hosting national power Owosso (Oklahoma) on Thursday.
