Dallas Hillcrest’s baseball team is back in the area round.
The Panthers completed a sweep of Mesquite Poteet in the bi-district round of the playoffs Thursday, avenging last year’s first-round loss to the Pirates in convincing fashion.
Hillcrest took Game 1 on Wednesday in Sunnyvale, 3-0, before finishing off Poteet Thursday with an 8-2 win at Lake Highlands.
Hillcrest never trailed and led, 8-0, after five innings.
“Poteet is a really good team and is well-coached,” said Ashley Moore, Hillcrest head coach. “We’ve had some issues with them in the past with getting beat by them, so I’m really glad we got the win against them this time. They’ve been a little bit of a bug-a-boo for us.”
Jayden Pescador earned the win on the bump after pitching into the fifth inning and tallying eight strikeouts before giving way to Josh Pepper.
Pescador navigated around a leadoff double in the top of the second inning by inducing a pair of grounders and striking out Poteet’s Nate Salazar, and worked through a jam with runners at second and third with one out in the third by catching Ryan Dotson looking.
Poteet had another chance to break through in the fifth with the bases loaded and one out, but Pepper struckout cleanup hitter Alex Benitez before getting Melvin Smith IV to ground out to third.
Poteet would eventually get on the board with single runs in the top of the sixth and seventh, but it wasn’t near enough to threaten Hillcrest’s previous 8-0 advantage.
“Jaden is 8-0 this season for a reason,” Moore said. “He’s thrown the ball very well for us all year and we felt very confident he would come out here and do the job for us.”
Offensively, Hillcrest managed to cross the plate eight times despite recording just five hits.
The Panthers opened the scoring in the bottom of the second when Elias Garcia doubled, Julio Lunga was hit by a pitch and Lincoln Hunter reached on an error, scoring Garcia and putting runners at second and third.
Ethan Pacheco and Pescador delivered RBIs for a 3-0 lead and Hillcrest was back at it in the bottom of the third when they loaded the bases with nobody out on a pair of walks and hit-by-pitch setting the stage for a two-run single by Garcia.
Hunter would tack on a sacrifice fly for a 6-0 margin and the Panthers would later receive RBIs in the fourth from Carlos Salazar on a single and in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Hunter.
“After yesterday, we wanted to force them to kind of make the mistakes today and to force them into a high pitch count,” Moore said. “It worked out pretty well today.”
Hillcrest now advances to the second round of the Class 5A Division 2 playoffs where they will square off against a Corsicana team that swept Waco’s University High.
“It will be a good challenge,” Moore said. “We’re going to prepare well and be up for it and we’ll see what happens.”
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