Composure through an early deficit leads to the Owls’ big win over LA Mission to bring their three-game series to 1-1.
“Hey, so what?” was the theme and statement of the day in the Owls’ dugout as they triumphed through adversity in their 14-7 win on Thursday over a team they had just lost to on Tuesday.
After going down 3-1 by the top of the second, the team stood unfazed. While the bats were still slow through this early part of the game, by the top of the third, Conner Luetto, the starter for Citrus, had already taken charge. With two easy strikeouts and a groundout, he put a short end to the Eagles advancements on offense.
The fourth inning was more of the same. Luetto pitched an amazing inning with some questionable calls by the umpire, but the team, although surprised by the calls, was quick to let them go and move on to the next call at hand. After facing five batters and leaving 2 of them on second and third, the owls escaped the inning unscathed.
“I think it’s just baseball, you always want it to go your way,” Luetto said after the game. “It is what it is, you just gotta deal with it, can’t change the umpire’s mind, so you just gotta move on and not dwell on the past.”
This exact mentality held throughout the early part of the game is what led them to the bottom of the fourth. Citrus freshman Beau Lloyd took the privilege of driving in the first of two runs this inning off a single to left field, starting the momentum for the rest of the game after leaving that inning with the game tied 3-3.
In both the fifth and the sixth innings, Luetto continued this by only letting up one home run in the top of the sixth, leaving the game with six strikeouts and two walks, with four runs scored by the other team in six innings.
On the other side of things, Lloyd and the rest of the Owls lineup began using this momentum to bring in runs. In the bottom of the fifth, Jackson Gray hit a short ball out to center field to score Cole West from third. And after a balk and walk from the opposing pitcher, Lloyd was up to bat with the bases loaded, which, on the first good pitch he saw, hit a double to left field, scoring two, giving him three RBIs total and bringing the game to 6-3.
Throughout the rest of the game, the Eagles didn’t seem to have an answer. Through numerous pitching changes and attempts to bring in runs, the Owls offense and defense stood unfazed only letting in 3 more runs towards the end of the game.
With some strong and fast baserunning in the seventh, Lloyd hit a sacrifice fly to the warning track of center field, in which he said “wished had caught a little wind to send him over.” Although not a home run, it was still his fourth RBI of the game, bringing the score to 7-4.
The Owls continued on to the bottom of the eighth inning, and with the help of a hard-fought at-bat by Royce Mendoza to start, they went on a run, scoring seven runs in just one inning to officially put this game out of reach. Included in this, Lance Armijo hit a three-RBI double, and Lloyd hit another sacrifice fly, scoring his fifth RBI of the game.
Lloyd saw this game as not only a turnaround from their last, but a start to get himself back on track from the slump he was in early in the year. “It was a weight off of my shoulders,” he said. “When we were down 3-0, we could’ve just folded, gone down two games to them, but we came back as a team. Hopefully that will ride with us the rest of the season.”
The game was closed up by closing pitcher Evan Ellis, with little stress after letting up two runs in the top of the ninth. With their next game to play at 2 p.m. on April 3rd.
