2016 NHSI: Hot Start Powers Trinity Christian

CARY, N.C.—Coming out of the high school baseball hot bed of Florida, Trinity Christian is accustomed to facing top-flight opposition, so they weren’t going to be out of their element playing big games in the National High School Invitational.

The Conquerors, out of Jacksonville, Fla., also just happen to be the reigning Florida 4A state champions, so they’re used to winning those big games, too. They looked the part in their opening game of the NHSI on Wednesday, jumping on Topsail (N.C.) High for seven runs over the first two innings and cruising from there to a 7-0 win to advance to Thursday’s quarterfinals.

“We stack our schedule early in the year with our non-district games and try to play the best teams in the state of Florida,” Trinity head coach Gil Morales said. “We’ve been fortunate to face some really good arms, so coming into a game, one thing the kids learn is that you’ve got to jump on guys early. You’ve got to manufacture when you have the opportunity. I felt like that’s what we did today. We had timely hits early in the game, jumped on them and got in cruise control and played sound defense to get through the game.”

While Topsail starter Payton Phelps struggled to stay in the strike zone early, Trinity’s hitters stayed with their approaches, drawing five walks over the first two innings to go with their seven base hits.

Trinity scored twice in the first but stranded the bases loaded. Given another chance at a big inning in the second, this time they didn’t let it pass. Senior outfielder Todd Lott, one of the team’s best prospects and a Louisiana-Lafayette recruit, struck the biggest blow, driving a two-run double into the left-center field gap. The Conquerors added three more runs in the inning to build the 7-0 lead. They had only one more base hit from the third inning onward, but the damage had been done.

“I was just trying to put the ball in the air and got into one,” Lott said. “We knew what we expected, so we just had to jump on them fast.”

“Our biggest thing is we want to be aggressive, but we’ve got to feel guys out,” Morales said. “We’ve got to see what the strike zone’s going to look like. We’re facing a lefty, so we felt we could take a side of the plate away. He was getting that changeup established and we were fishing at it early in the game. We were telling guys after that first inning, ‘Be patient. Let the ball come to you.’ ”

Conquerors righthander A.J. Labas worked 3 2/3 innings before being relieved, the team not wanting to extend him with the big lead. Matthew Parker and K.C. Isenberg finished the shutout, holding Topsail to three hits. Topsail’s best chance to score came in the third when Aaron Beach led off with a triple, but Labas fought back to strand him there, finishing the inning with one of his six strikeouts.

“We played real good team baseball today,” Morales said. “We were lucky to jump up on Topsail early. Allowed us to strategize a little bit with the pitching. I thought A.J. did a great job, and then it’s just a team effort. We got a lot of players in, and defensively I thought we played a really good game today.”