By SCOT COOPER
LYNN — The KIPP Academy baseball team came up a run short Saturday at Fraser Field in a 5-4 loss to Prospect Hill Academy.
PHA pitcher Anthony Medeiros got a strikeout with the tying and winning runs on third and second base to close out the ballgame.
In the bottom of the seventh, the Panthers were down to their final out and down two runs when they started to rally. Jhomar Cuevas stroked a single to keep KIPP alive, and Raymond Castro crushed a double to make the score 5-4.
With Castro at second, PHA coach Geoff Lerner intentionally walked Dylan Santos, hoping Johan Lopez would ground into a force play to end the game. The move backfired when Castro and Santos executed a double steal. Lopez fouled off a couple before being retired by Medeiros to end the game.
Lerner said he was concerned that his intentional walk would come back to bite him, after foregoing a free pass earlier in the game to Cuevas with a runner on second and a 3-1 lead. Cuevas stepped up and cranked a homer to tie the game up at three.
“I was very concerned, I thought I didn’t walk the guy (Cuevas) when I should have and then it looked like I did walk the guy (Santos) that I shouldn’t have,” Lerner said. “Luckily for me, Medeiros bailed me out, he came in for Luis Brito in relief and did a very good job for us. It was nice to get a win in a close game today.”
PHA scored twice in the top of the first and a run in the top of the third before the Panthers broke out with three in their half of the third. Dion Castro started things off with a sharp single to left . He came home when leadoff hitter Aubrey Connors stroked a single into right field. Connors came home on Cuevas’s shot two batters later.
All of KIPP’s runs came with two out. Coach Alberto Cuevas liked the way his team kept battling at the plate on every pitch.
“It would have been nice to get that tying, and maybe that winning run, but the boys played very hard until the last out,” Cuevas said. “We’re a very young team, and we’re learning and getting better every game, the pitchers and the hitters both did a good job today.”
This is Cuevas’s first season as head coach, after a season as an assistant for the third-year baseball program at KIPP. The coach said he is excited that the Panthers (1-2) can keep getting better each game out.
“You can see the enthusiasm is high and we’re learning every game and we want that to continue all season,” he said.