CAMERON — Taylor High School varsity baseball’s season came to a conclusion last week.
The Ducks, who finished the season with a 16-12-2 record, lost two consecutive games to China Spring in the area round of the playoffs Thursday, May 9 and Friday, May 10.
Coach Kale McQuillen said as a whole, he is pretty proud of how his team played in his first year as head coach of the team.
“We faced a lot of challenges with injuries to where we had to make adjustments,” McQuillen said. “We went into every game with a clean slate and a goal to win and play the best that we possibly could. The kids worked hard and played in positions that they didn’t normally play. We fought hard, competed to the best of our ability and most importantly had fun with it.”
China Spring 16, Taylor 1 The Cougars struck early and often against the Ducks in the opening game of the series.
While weather ultimately shortened the game to just five innings of play, China Spring wracked up 15 hits.
The reigning state champions took advantage of five Taylor errors to tally a high total of runs.
Senior Dominick Hartman homered to left field to score the sole run for the Ducks that night.
China Spring 5, Taylor 1 Although Taylor outhit its opponent in the elimination game, China Spring scored four runs in an extra inning to win the game.
After giving up an unearned run in the first inning, senior Chris Perez pitched nearly six innings of shutout ball for the Ducks.
Perez finished with 11 strikeouts, only allowed two hits and did not issue a walk throughout the contest.
China Spring posted the four run-inning by drawing four walks, hitting one single and scoring on an error.
