Cards win area championship

The Columbus Cardinals continued to navigate their way through the early rounds of the playoffs when they captured the Area Championship on Friday, May 10, at Bulldog Field in Marion, TX.

The Cards played in a one game series against the Hondo Owls, and it took a big defensive effort.

The defense was once again led by their pitchers and the Cards needed two pitchers to win the Area Championship. Kaleb Kuhn and James Janak combined their talents on the mound for the Cardinals and they played phenomenally.

The duo combined for 15 strikeouts, five walks and only one hit in seven innings. Kuhn played six innings and secured one out in the seventh inning before Janak came in for relief closing out the game with one last strikeout.

Through six innings Kuhn threw 110 pitches, 73 of which were strikes. When Kuhn headed to the dugout in the sixth inning, he had 14 strikeouts recorded in the game adding to impressive senior season.

While Kuhn and Janak locked down the field defensively the offense struggled to find a rhythm. The Cards were able to finally break the scoreless tie in the bottom of the third when Trevor Berger hit a two-run homerun to open the scoring.

Little did these teams know that Berger’s two run homerun was the only scoring that happened in the game. Berger’s homerun was more than enough for the Cards to add pressure to Hondo.

Hondo had no answers for the Cards after they opened the scoring and could not find any sort of offensive spark for their team. Hondo recorded only one hit in the game making it even harder to score runs, and the Cards defense closed out the game with a final score of 2-0.

The Cards now enter the regional part of the bracket and must play a familiar foe in the Regional Quarterfinals. The Cards will play against Tidehaven who the Cards swept in district play so this game is set up to be a classic.

Games against District teams are always more important, but now that their seasons are on the lines both teams will be looking to send the other home.