It was their third game in three days, but the St. Cloud Bulldogs found enough energy and a couple big base hits Thursday for a 4-1 win over Gateway.
Both teams, now 3-4, get a break — Spring Break — before playing again in 11 days, so Bulldogs Coach Bo O’Dell was pleased to get a win to go into the break on.
“We’re going to practice a little bit,” he said about the break. “We played OK this week, just didn’t get the wins we wanted (6-2 loss to Osceola Tuesday, 4-1 to Harmony Wednesday).”
The Bulldogs won Thursday because of a couple big hits. With two outs in the third inning, Josh Jacobs laced a based-loaded double to center, then Carlos Batista followed with an RBI single to make it 3-0.
Gateway narrowed the gap to 3-1 in the fifth when Charlie Soto put down a beautiful safety squeeze bunt, but Brandon Milan’s sacrifice fly in the sixth drove in Clayton Boroski to make it 4-1.
“The bats will get there, if we clean things up in the field, we’ll compete,” O’Dell said.
Gateway is playing as an independent this year after dropping down to JV last year when the program was gutted by Tohopekaliga opening and losing players to charter programs. Coach Jim Moran is happy with the progress those young players have made to get back to varsity play.
“The incentive for the is to play proud baseball this year, and know the future is bright. I’m happy with what these kids are doing,” Moran said.
