Cowboys take 9-3 win over Eagles, Polk goes yard on two-run shot
Coppell High School junior Blake Jackson runs to second base after a hit during the first inning of last night’s game at the Coppell ISD Baseball/Softball Complex. The Cowboys won their last regular season home game 11-3 against the Richardson Eagles.
April 25, 2018
Last night’s baseball game ended in a 9-3 Coppell victory over Richardson. The Cowboys got nine runs off of nine hits, including a two-run home run hit by sophomore catcher Hudson Polk.
Although senior left fielder Anthony Villalobos and junior center fielder Blake Jackson led off the first inning for the Cowboys with two singles to left, the Cowboys were unable to bring either runner home, leaving the runners stranded and Coppell scoreless in the first.
In the second inning, the Cowboys scored three runs off of two walks and a triple hit to left center by senior designated hitter Reid Valentine.
Coppell went quietly in the third inning but scored four in the fourth from three walks and three hits.
No runs were scored by either team in the fifth inning. Senior pitcher Connor Martin kept Richardson hitless until the sixth inning, when the Eagles began to catch up. Richardson loaded the bases with three singles and an error, at which point Coppell coach Kendall Clark called for a pitching change. Junior pitcher Porter Hardcastle came in to relieve Martin and pitched the remainder of the inning.
Although the Eagles were able to score three runs off of five hits, the damage was minimal and the Cowboys still held the lead by four runs at that point.
In the bottom of the sixth, Jackson led off the inning with a solid single that dropped in right center field. Polk followed in the order and brought home Jackson on a hard-hit shot that sailed over the left field fence.
“[The home run] felt great,” Polk said. “It was sort of the icing on the cake. At that point, we were already up by a few and that was sort of the final dagger that ended it.”
Hardcastle ended the game in the seventh by throwing a runner out at first who had bunted down the third base line.
Martin came out of the game in the sixth after throwing 70 pitches and four strikeouts. Hardcastle closed with 38 pitches and three strikeouts.
“We played collectively, as a whole,” Polk said. “It was all a solid group effort.”
The Cowboys play the Eagles again in Richardson on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
