Clearwater Central Catholic’s Rally Falls Short Against Clearwater

The Clearwater Central Catholic Marauders traveled the short distance on Wednesday to face non-district opponent Clearwater Tornadoes. Both offenses remained quiet for most of the game until the Tornadoes spread six runs over the sixth and seventh inning on their way to a 7-3 victory.

The Tornadoes (13-9) sent Steven Lange to the mound to face the Marauders (9-12) who came in as winners of three of their last five games. Lange was great over 4.2 innings. He threw 73 pitches allowing just four hits and no runs while striking out a batter in the victory.

Lange left the game with just a one-run lead but in the sixth the Tornadoes offense began to make some noise. With one out and the bases loaded, Andrew Young was hit by a pitch, which brought home Lange from third for the second run of the game. During the next at-bat, an error allowed Zach Marshall and Garrison Bryant to score to increase the lead to four.

Blake Wren scored on an error in the seventh to increase the lead to six. Lange added another run in the seventh, to cap the scoring, on a Bryant sacrifice fly.

The Marauders entered the bottom of the seventh down by seven and quickly found themselves down to their final two outs. However they did not go down without a fight. After Danny Slattery and Patrick Purcell reached base on an error and a walk, Derek Smolenski lined a ball into center field for a triple to score two runs and then came around to score himself on an error to the Tornadoes infield to pull to within four.

However, the Tornadoes sent Bryant out to the mound for the final two outs and he struck out both hitters on eight pitches to preserve the 7-3 win.

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