Marjory Stoneman Douglas Baseball wins District Championship. {MSD Athletics}
By: Matt Rothman
In a battle between two top teams in the country, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas baseball team defeated J.P. Taravella in the District Final 5-0 on Thursday in Parkland.
The game was the second matchup between these two teams this year after the Trojans beat the Eagles in the High School Baseball Invitational in March. However, MSD picked up their 25th win and will head into Regionals as the top seed.
“It’s good to get a little bit of redemption back,” said Head Coach Todd Fitz-Gerald. “We have been looking forward to this game, and we made some big pitches when we needed to. We just executed a little more than they did tonight.”
The Eagles received another tremendous performance from Chris Arroyo on the mound, who worked three scoreless innings before getting into trouble in the fourth. He struck out the next three hitters with runners on second and third before recording three more punch-outs in fifth to finish with ten.
Rodriguez also allowed the first two runners to reach in the sixth after coming in from the bullpen and then retired the next three to keep the shutout before closing it out in the seventh.
Offensively, the Eagles jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first after Santiago Ordonez doubled home a run before Rodriguez brought in a run on a ground out. MSD doubled their lead with two more in the fifth. Jake Clemente brought in Roman Anthony and then scored on a safety squeeze from Rodriguez.
Anthony then just missed a three-run homer in the sixth but settled for a sacrifice fly. The Eagles finished the game with seven stolen bases and took advantage of three JPT errors.
Next, both teams will wait to see their opponents, which are set to start on Tuesday, May 11 at 6 p.m. with the chance of a rematch in the District Semifinals on Friday, May 14.
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