By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
STRAFFORD — When he was plotting out the pitching rotation for the next few games, Skyline coach Brett Bybee turned to senior Ty Pinon and asked him what game he would like to start.
There wasn’t really a choice to be made.
Though Skyline’s ace was rested and ready when Russellville came to town on Friday, pitching then would have left Pinon unavailable for Monday’s showdown at Strafford. He would have denied himself the chance to finally defeat a team Skyline hadn’t beaten in more than a decade.
So when Bybee posed the question, Pinon responded almost immediately.
“He looked me dead in the eyes and said ‘I want Strafford,’” Bybee recalled.
Pinon went from staring down his coach to mowing down the Indians lineup, delivering five-plus masterful innings to lead the Tigers to a long-awaited 12-2 victory at Strafford High School.
The Tigers had lost 11 consecutive games to Strafford since 2009, the most distant year for which statistics are publicly available, and had been outscored 154-34 in the process.
But Pinon flipped the script on Monday, striking out nine and allowing just four baserunners as he held the Indians scoreless through five innings and the Tigers raced to a 9-0 lead. They never looked back to improve to 4-0 and deal the hosts (5-1) their first loss of the season.
“We haven’t beaten Strafford in a long time,” Pinon said. “We were on the wrong end of some beatdowns my freshman and sophomore years and we kind of wanted to get them back. We knew they were down a little — they lost some good players — and if we were going to get them, we knew this was the year to do it.”
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After allowing a leadoff single — who he then picked off — Pinon quickly settled into a rhythm and retired nine of the next 10 batters he faced. That included striking out the side in the second as he showed off the velocity that earned him second-team all-state honors as a sophomore.
“He’s a great pitcher,” Bybee said. “The first inning or two he got out there, he was a little tight — and you kind of expect that at the beginning of the year — but this was the first time he looked that dominant like I knew he could.”
Strafford’s Evan Helton was right with Pinon for the first two innings, striking out four without allowing a hit, but ran into trouble in the third inning. He balked in a run and the Indians made two errors behind him as Skyline took a 3-0 lead.
Pinon hit a two-out RBI double to score Zach Williams and close out the scoring, then he induced a trio of 4-3 groundouts in the bottom half of the inning to keep the momentum going.
“He throws hard and mixes in a good little curveball here and there,” Strafford coach Shane Pierce said. “He gets ahead in counts for the most part. In high school baseball, if you throw strikes you’re probably going to be successful. That’s what he did today. He did a good job.”
Strafford pitchers struggled to find the strike zone, combining to walk eight batters — including the first four they saw in the top half of a challenging fifth inning.
Each of those five runners came around to score during Skyline’s five-run inning, with Dawson Owen’s two-RBI single briefly putting the Tigers on the brink of invoking the 10-run rule.
Helton, who exited after facing one batter in the fifth, was charged with five runs and allowed two hits and two walks while striking out five.
Pinon threw into the sixth, but was pulled after allowing a leadoff double to Dekota Ames and hitting Mason Denning, which were just his fifth and sixth baserunners on the afternoon.
They both eventually scored, spoiling Pinon’s chance at a shutout, but younger brother Trent Pinon recorded the final six outs — four by strikeout — to preserve the win.
Skyline tacked on another three runs in the top of the seventh without recording a hit, taking advantage of two walks, a fielder’s choice and a pair of wild pitches for a 10-run advantage.
Eight of the nine Tigers reached base safely in the win, with Owen, Sam Fillipi, Nick Williams and Zach Williams all scoring a pair of runs even though Owen was the only one to record a hit.
The others grounded into fielder’s choices or drew walks, which proved to be just as productive.
“I’m really happy with where we’re at with our bats every game,” Bybee said. “Even though we’ve been hitting well all season, it’s just getting a little bit better every game. Some guys that have been struggling are making some adjustments. They may not have gone 3-for-4 today, but they’re working on those things and there’s a lot of season left for us to get those figured out.”
With this win and a season-opening triumph over Fair Grove to their credit, the Tigers have a 2-0 record in the Mid-Lakes Conference and are emerging as the team to beat in the race for the conference title. But they also graduated just three players from a team that was ranked No. 1 in the Class 2 preseason rankings last year before COVID-19 canceled the season.
Even though Bybee thinks they will wind up in Class 3 this year, he thinks this team has the talent to earn a third straight Final Four appearance and contend for a state championship.
“I think they can do it,” Bybee said. “I’ve done a little scouting already this season and I think we’ve got a good shot at it if we keep playing like this.”
Though it’s early in the season, wins such as this one — a blowout win over a team that had, historically, been a white whale — only add fuel to Skyline’s hopes of another deep playoff run.
“Baseball is crazy because anybody can win on any day,” Ty Pinon added. “It’s not like basketball where it just happens on talent. You have to have the luck — or as a lot of guys like to say, the baseball gods have got to be smiling down on you whenever you’re out here playing.”
For the early part of the season, the senior feels they have been. And the Tigers are smiling too.
“I feel really good about it,” he said. “Our guys are excited and we’re motivated. We’re 4-0 now and we’re looking forward to the rest of our season. That was clearly one of our tougher opponents. We’re really glad we came out of there with a win today.”
SKYLINE (4-0) 003 150 3 — 12
STRAFFORD (5-1) 000 002 0 — 2
