Greg Webb
sports@weatherforddemocrat.com
May 05, 2008 02:56 pm
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Weatherford pitcher Taylor Massey and the Roos infield provided few openings for the North Crowley offense Friday, as the Kangaroos closed out their regular season with a 6-0 blanking of the Panthers. Senior night at Raymond E. Curtis Field provided the backdrop for a stellar performance by the Weatherford defense, which may be peaking at the right time, with playoffs looming just over the horizon.
“Defense has been the deal with us all year,” said Weatherford head coach Terry Massey. “We’ve played pretty good defense and had good pitching.
“This time of year, the hitting starts to catch up with the pitching and if you don’t play defense, you are not going to win. Early in the year the pitching is a little bit ahead and you have more strikeouts, but as the year goes on and the strikeouts go down, you better play defense and that’s what we’ve been doing.”
On the mound, Taylor Massey forced 13 ground balls, which the Roos infield converted into 11 outs, with just one bobble, to keep the Panthers batters from getting any kind of rally going in the contest. Adding five strikeouts and spreading three hits across the seven innings, pitcher Massey notched another win, which proved to be a significant one.
“Taylor got his 11th win and that’s a Weatherford school record,” Coach Massey said. “I’m really happy for him. He didn’t have his very best curve ball today, but we played some good defense behind him and got it done.”
Panthers pitcher Ryan Beckman proved well the point about good defense. Though the pitcher was effective enough to record nine Ks through six innings pitched, his supporting cast gave up five errors. Weatherford needed just four hits to produce the six runs in the game, though one of those was a double off the bat of first baseman Kevin Manning, which netted two RBIs in the sixth inning and provided a more comfortable margin going into the final frame. Manning finished the night with two hits in three at bats.
Coach Massey expressed his pleasure in seeing the bottom of his batting order continue to be productive, of late.
“Our hitting is coming along,” Massey said. “We had a big hit in the bottom of the line-up [in this game]. That’s been a problem we’ve had. It seems like we would go one through five [in the batting order], and have a dropoff six through nine, but the last three or four games we’ve been getting a run here and a couple there out of them. If you can do that you’ve got a chance to win a lot of ballgames.
Though already assured a playoff spot when the game began, the picture became a bit clearer as results around the district came to light Friday.
“Since Paschal won, that knocks Mansfield behind us,” Coach Massey said of the playoff seeding. “[Mansfield] will be the four seed and we’ll be the three, so that would put us playing Odessa [High].
“If Summit won, then Paschal and Summit would be tied for the district [lead]. [As far as deciding the champion] it really depends on if they care or not who they’ll play [in bi-district]. I know that they split their games this season so they will be tied for the lead.”
Summit did win over Granbury, and the sites and times will be determined over the weekend for the playoffs. Weatherford, and the other three District 4-5A teams will be matched in bi-district contests against the qualifiers from District 3-5A. The Roos, finishing the regular season with a 20-10 overall record and 11-5 district mark, finish their season strong, winning 8 of their last eleven ball games.
Coach Massey is both positive and confident that the Roos are primed for playoff contention.
“You want to get better in the last half of the season, and we’re definitely playing our best baseball right now,” Massey said. “The next couple of weeks should be interesting, but I think we can play with anybody in [the 3-5A) district.”
Weatherford 6, North Crowley 0
NCHS 000 000 0 — 0 3 5
WHS 012 003 X — 6 4 1
Beckman and Piercefield, Gustafson(5); Massey and Matlock. WP — Massey; LP — Beckman. 2B — (WHS) Manning; (NCHS) none.
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