Pirates stay alive

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Brian McLellan

Published: April 27, 2005

After Friday’s loss to Daytona Beach, the PJC baseball team had to dig deep to fight off elimination and beat No. 1 ranked Manatee Community College, 6-2.

After catcher Donnie Vickers’ lead-off double in the top of the 3rd, PJC then proceeded to bunt their way to a 1-0 lead.  Marshall Barfield bunted Vickers to third, and then Ian Craze reached an RBI suicide squeeze with no outs in the inning.

Kevin Ferreira was then walked to load the bases, and second-baseman Bridger Hunt sacrificed to center to bring in Barfield and make it a 2-0 game after 3 innings

In the top of the 5th, with Ferreira on first, Bo Williams lined a shot to left field, but Lancer left-fielder Angel Mercado couldn’t hold on to the diving catch and Williams turned it into an RBI triple.

“I thought it was going to be a double, but then I looked and saw (Mercado) stand up and he didn’t have the ball, so I kept on running,” Williams said.

On the next pitch, Hunt grounded to the short-stop, but the throw to first was high, and Williams scored to make it 4-0 PJC.

Will Jostock picked up the win for the Pirates (37-17), going a complete game with five strike outs, including striking out the side in the bottom of the 7th, and allowed 6 hits

“I was just keeping the ball down in the strike-zone, and kept throwing strikes,” Jostock said.

In the top of the 8th, Donnie Vickers added to the Pirates lead with a one-out single with two men on, and an error by the Manatee right-fielder allowed Steve Hornasaj and Jason Kohl to score, giving PJC a 6-2 lead.

“Our whole scheme was to just get runs early,” Hamilton said.  “(Manatee) is the best hitting team in the state, so we just needed to get as many runs as possible.”

The Pirates will play tomorrow at noon CDT against Chipola.

PJC went 3-2 this season against Chipola, who won the Panhanlde Conference