Red Devils down Dragons

Senior pitcher Dylan Heiring allowed one hit in five innings and Jeff Falis tossed two innings of scoreless relief to lead Avon Park to a 5-4 win over Lake Placid in a Class 3A-District 9 baseball game at a cold and wind-swept Charles R. Head Field on Friday night.

The win evened Avon Park's record at 3-3 overall and 2-2 in district play.

"It was a good win for us and I'm proud of the guys for hanging in there on a tough night to play," said first-year Avon Park coach Whit Cornell. "We knew Lake Placid would be ready for us and that we would have to play a solid game if we wanted to win.

"Lake Placid has a young team, but they're improving and we beat a quality opponent tonight."

The loss dropped Lake Placid to 1-3 in district action.

"We competed and played OK," said veteran Green Dragon coach Dan Coomes. "We played hard and hung in there and that's pretty good with a bunch of freshmen in our starting lineup.

"We had our chances but couldn't quite get the big hit when we needed it, but we're improving and that's what's important."

Avon Park took the lead in the bottom of the first inning against Lake Placid right-hander Dylan Weber-Callahan.

Catcher Chad Marley led off the inning by getting hit by a pitch, stole second base and scored on a two-out, infield single by Drew Reeves.

Heiring followed with an infield hit and Reeves scored when the throw to first base got away for an error.

The final run scored when Cole Jones' ground ball was misplayed for another Green Dragon error to give the Red Devils a 3-0 lead.

Heiring, who struck out eight, cruised through the Lake Placid batting order without any problems until the top of the third inning.

Mario Gonzales drew a walk off of Heiring and scored when center fielder David Samperi lofted a fly ball that sailed just over the right-field wall for a two-run homer to pull the Green Dragons within 3-2.

Weber-Callahan reached base on a walk, one of five that Heiring issued in his five innings of work, but the lanky lefty bore down to strike out the next batter to escape further damage.

"David is an excellent athlete and has surprising power," Coomes said. "We put a number of guys on base, but we struggled hitting with runners in scoring position."

Avon Park tacked on a run in the bottom of the frame when Reeves lined a leadoff single, stole second base, advanced to third base on an infield single by Heiring and trotted home on a sacrifice fly by Jones to put the Red Devils up 4-2.

Avon Park plated an important insurance run in the bottom of the fourth inning as Marley reached on an error, one of three the Green Dragons made, and raced home on an RBI single by first baseman Ty Jackson to increase the Red Devils' lead to 5-2.

Lake Placid refused to fold and battled back in the top of the sixth inning.

A pair of walks started the rally and Falis came on in relief of Heiring.

Brodie Carr plated a run with a fielder's choice ground out and Kyle Barber, who has missed the early part of the season with a knee injury, lined an RBI double down the left-field line to pull the Dragons within 5-4.

Lake Placid got something going in its final at-bat as Samperi singled with two outs, but Falis retired the last Green Dragon batter to seal the hard-fought district win.

"I didn't have great control tonight," said Heiring. "But the team picked me up with the offense, we played solid defense and got the win.

"We didn't make any errors and we're tough to beat when we play like we did tonight."

The solid game should bolster the Red Devils confidence.

"Dylan always gives us a chance to win when he's on the mound," said Cornell. "I was happy to see us not make any errors and it's good to see that what we've been working on in practice is starting to pay off."

Avon Park is at Mulberry on Thursday and back home on Friday against Tenoroc, while Lake Placid is at Tenoroc on Thursday.