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The Columbus Cardinals’ varsity baseball team got their home schedule started with the annual HOP Priest tournament late last week. The Cards came into the tournament after a strong win against Boling to begin the season. Columbus kept up their momentum in the tourney, finishing with an undefeated record in four games, including a game against their fellow Colorado County varsity players from Weimar. The Wildcats’ stats and results from the tournament were not available by the press deadline.
Vs Weimar, W, 7-2
The Cards started their tournament run with a quick start against the Wildcats of Weimar. Columbus got out to a quick start, scoring an early run to get open the scoreboard. Weimar quickly responded with a run scored of their own in the next inning. With a tie game entering the bottom of the third, the Cardinals went on to score six total runs in the next three innings, including a 3-run inning in the third to start the scoring streak. Weimar managed just one more run in the fifth inning, but they were never able to make any meaningful progress on the deficit while Columbus put the game out of reach on offense.
Vs Brazos, W, 9-3
Columbus had to battle from behind in their following game against the Brazos Cougars after allowing their opponents to open the game with a 2-run first inning. The Cards got one run closer after their at-bats in the second inning, but it was again the third inning that made the difference in the final result. Columbus knocked in four runs in the inning, and four more in the fifth inning to effectively end the game.
The win did not solely rest on the shoulders of the offense as the defense had another strong outing. After the 2-run first inning, Brazos went scoreless until the sixth inning when they scored just one run. With their work already done, the Cards forced officials to call the game early and never returned to bat for the bottom of the sixth.
Vs Lexington, W, 4-3
The closest game of the season so far required some heroics from the offense to snatch away the win from their third opponent of the tourney. The first three innings were back-and-forth in the scoring column. The Eagles scored a run in every other inning starting with a lone run in the first. Columbus kept within striking distance with two runs in the second inning, but Lexington scored again in the third and the fifth to take the lead late in the game. The Cards failed to score in the bottom of the sixth, but gave themselves a chance for the walk-off victory after holding Lexington scoreless in the top of the seventh inning.
With a one-point deficit in the bottom of the seventh, the Cards got a big swing from Lane Kulhanek to score the winning run as Columbus scored two in the final inning to win.
Vs Shiner, W, 2-0
The Cards showed off how potent they believe their defense will be this season with a tournament- closing shut out against the Shiner Comanches. The two teams spent much of this game deadlocked as the defenses made their mark with quality play and only one combined error between them. Neither team scored until the fifth inning when Columbus got a clutch hit from Dylan Zajicek that scored two runners. Shiner was not able to respond in the following inning, and the Cards held on for the tight victory in their most defensive battle of the season so far.
