The baseball team had a four-game road trip last weekend, with the first three games at Ohio Christian and then the final home game at Wilberforce.
Heading into the four-game road trip, the Pioneers came in hot, winning five of their last six games. Looking at the bigger picture, the team has been playing consistent for the entire season.
Despite the tough set of games in Florida, the Pioneers are putting together an impressive season sitting at first place in the River States Conference East Division with an overall record of 24-10 and conference record of 14-4.
The Pioneers opened against a struggling Ohio Christian squad with an 11-22 overall record. With a team desperate for wins like the Trailblazers, the Pioneers had to bring it.
In the first game, the Pioneers battled for any type of offense in this game. It was a pitcher’s duel between Pioneer sophomore Ramon Rodriguez, who’s 6-2 on the season, against Trailblazer pitcher Tyler House.
Despite the Trailblazers combining for only four hits in the contest, it was the errors on defense that were costly for the Pioneers. The Trailblazers got an early lead in the second with an infield error, which later proved to be valuable as Karson Runk delivered an RBI single.
Then in the fourth inning, the Trailblazers extended their lead with Trey Henry driving in two with a base hit. This was set up by an error. Despite the statistically good pitching from the Pioneers, they could simply not get their bats going as the Pioneers got five hits in a 3-1 loss to start the road trip.
Saturday featured a completely different story, as the men had a chance at redemption. The bats were more than alive as the Pioneers delivered hit after hit. From start to finish, the game was a relentless beatdown for the Pioneers over the Trailblazers.
In this game, no matter who the Pioneers put up on the mound, they were getting a lot of run support. In the first game of the series, the Pioneers only had five hits. In this one, they exploded with 17 hits from 10 different players and 20 runs.
The Pioneers were up 10-0 after the third inning. Some highlights from the offense were outfielder Jared Campbell hitting a three-homer to make the score 5-0 and going three-for-three as he is putting up an impressive season with a .361 batting average and 11 home runs.
Chrixtian Taveras also went off in this game, as many of the team did, hitting a three-run RBI double to make the score 9-0.
With the run support at a surplus, Javier Cardoso cursed to victory as he had a stellar outing, giving up one hit through five innings to help the Pioneers win 20-0.
As the Pioneers looked to win the series in the third and final game against Ohio Christian, it would be more of a fight from the Trailblazers in this one. But it simply was not enough to beat the wagon that is this Pioneers team.
It was a crazy first inning as both teams exchanged five runs. The score would remain tied through the fifth inning.
Another offensive surge from the Pioneers put this game out of reach, starting in the top of the sixth inning. In the sixth, it was the top of the lineup as Javier Jr and Jared Campbell reached base for Santana’s go-ahead single.
The Trailblazers would then drag themselves down by hitting three Pioneer batters and walking two for a four-run sixth inning. More of the same would happen in the top of the seventh as outfielder Chris Williams hit a two-run blast which added to his four RBI performance and a 13-7 win over the Trailblazers.
The final game of the road trip was a trip to Wilberforce against the 7-22 Bulldogs. The story of this game was the otherworldly performance by Pioneer starting pitcher Joathan Rivera pitching a scoreless 7 innings while only giving up four hits, one walk and 14 strikeouts.
The Pioneers yet again put together an offensive performance en route to a 8-0 victory to end the road trip 3-1.
The Pioneers will look to carry their momentum into a nine-game home stand starting with Georgetown on Tuesday.
