By T. Scott Boatrght
Baseball is often a game of timing — a game of moments.
And the Ruston High School baseball team ended up with more of those big moments at the right times Tuesday night.
After surrendering an early one-run to 23rd-seeded Mandeville at the Ruston Sports Complex, the 10th-seeded Bearcats saved their best for last to take a 2-1 win in opening-round play of the Class 5A playoffs.
“We’re going to take things one pitch at a time,” said first-year Bearcats coach Zack Smith. “That’s what we preach every day – win each game, win each moment. There’s a lot of moments in every game and we just try to win every one of them.”
It was the Skippers who turned in the first big moment as Wes Carr led off with a single, reached second on a field error before scoring on an RBI single hit by rightfield Rex Henderson.
That would be the last run given up by Bearcats pitcher Reid Williams, who completed the seven-inning game with eight strikeouts with only two walks and four total hits for the Skippers.
“It was a fun game to play and be part of,” Williams said. “A great game and a great win. I trusted my defense and grinded it out.”
Smith was proud of the way his pitcher performed in a pressure situation.
“It was a great performance,” Smith said of his senior pitcher. “Reid hadn’t had any pitching experience on the mound before this year. And then to pitch like that in this atmosphere, to see him do that – it was a great performance.”
Mandeville pitcher Remy Marsh turned in a strong game himself, also giving up only four hits to the Bearcats while allowing four walks and fanning seven batters.
Ruston turned in its first big moment in the bottom of the fourth inning. Dawson Szymanski singled with one out before being plated on a double hit by Cade Patterson to tie things up at 1-1.
The Bearcats’ next big moment came with one out in the bottom of the sixth inning. Szymanski singled to reach base this time before advancing to second on a wild pitch.
Marsh then forced a flyout before left fielder Dyson Fields stepped to the plate and slapped a single to score Szymanski.
Ruston managed to load the bases on two straight walks before Marsh worked himself out of that jam to push the game to the top of the seventh inning.
“I was just thinking what Coach Smith had told me — stay to the middle,” Fields said. “When you stay to the middle, good things happen.
“It’s always a big win in the playoffs. It’s lose or go home. So you want to beat every team every time in the playoffs.”
Smith knew how timely Fields’ hit was.
“You saw the energy in the dugout when that happened,” Smith said. “It kind of settled everybody down. We were on pins and needles there for a little while in a close game, We felt we could breathe a little bit once we got that run.”
Williams had his own big moment in Mandeville’s last at-bat as he struck out the leadoff batter and then walked the next. But that baserunner was caught trying to swipe second base and was thrown out. Williams then chalked up his final strikeout of the contest to initiate the Bearcats’ victory celebration.
“It’s huge. We needed that,” Williams said of the win. “There’s some stuff we need to go back and work on in practice and then just get back at it and keep this thing rolling.”
Williams finished with one of Ruston hits while Fields was waiting in the wings to take the mound for the Bearcats should that have been needed.
“We love to have dual guys that can hit and pitch,” Smith said. “Dyson was going to come in to pitch if we got into trouble there, so he’s one of those dual guys, too.
Next up for the Bearcats (24-10) will be a best-of-three series at seven-seeded Sam Houston. That series is expected to begin Friday evening with games two and three (if needed) being played on Saturday.
Sam Houston edged 26th-seeded Lafayette 4-3 on Tuesday night.
