Ida Baker’s Tony Rios, Bryce Van Horn and Christian Proffitt celebrate as Chris Sabo, center, scores a run at the Region 6A-3 baseball quarterfinal against Lely Wednesday in Cape Coral.
The heartbreak of falling just short of the state playoffs the last two seasons made it understandable for the Ida Baker baseball team to enter regionals with excitement and a little hop in its steps.
However, that may have worked against it in the first two innings of its first postseason game since 2013.
Bulldogs coach Bob VanDeventer may not have been pleased with how his club started, but he couldn’t be mad at how Baker came into its own in the middle innings and scored a 5-0 victory over Lely in a Region 6A-3 first round game on Wednesday.
Cody Hill had a huge two-run single to get things started in the third inning and starting pitcher Chris Schrowe gave up two hits and struck out eight over six innings, pushing Baker (22-5) into a regional semifinal matchup against Barron Collier it will host on Tuesday.
“I’m not sure why we came out kind of going through the motions early, which I can’t fathom in a playoff scenario,” VanDeventer said. “But I guess you come off the district title and they just came out sleeping. We regrouped and got back to the game plan at the plate of seeing the ball deep and not trying to do too much.”
Lely ended a 16-12 campaign where it made its first playoff appearance since 2013 on a sour note, making four errors behind starting pitcher Thomas Norman, who lasted 3 2/3 innings and was charged with five unearned runs.
“Guys have had his back all year,” Lely coach Greg Dombroski said. “It’s hard to look back at the last game of the year and you didn’t make plays that you’ve made pretty consistently throughout the year.”
It started in the third with a Luke Endsley routine groundball to shortstop that wasn’t handled and a balk that moved him to third. Chris Menendez later drove him in and Hill added a two-out, two run single to make it 3-0.
“To start off we were dead, but then we started to get fired up,” Hill said.
The umpire shows the count as Ida Baker’s Dakota Kayatta eyes the plate Wednesday at the Region 6A-3 baseball quarterfinal against Lely Wednesday in Cape Coral.
Norman retired the first two batters he faced in the fourth before he hit Dakota Kayatta with a pitch. Menedez hit a medium line drive to second which looked as if it would be caught but made it into center field. Later in the frame Hill drew a bases-loaded walk to go up five runs.
“At this part of the season, you play good teams. Every team you play is a good team,” Dombroski said. “In the postseason you’ve got to play your best game and, unfortunately tonight, we made numerous mistakes that cost us. This probably should have been a 1-0, 2-0 game. Enough with the would of, could of, should of. That’s a good Ida Baker team. They’re (22-5) for a reason.”
Schrowe retired 12 of 16 hitters to end the game.