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Baseball: St. Pierre's big night leads Flower Mound into area round
By Justin Thomas, jthomas@starlocalnews.com
COPPELL -- Starting pitcher Jake Elliot and Coppell's baseball team wanted no part of Flower Mound cleanup hitter Cody Gunter Friday, walking the Jaguar starting pitcher in each of his first three appearances at the plate, including twice intentionally.
Kyle St. Pierre made them pay.
The Flower Mound first baseman delivered a two-run double in the top of the first to get the Jaguars out to a solid start and later powered a two-run homer to left in the top of the fifth as the Jaguars completed a bi-district round sweep of Coppell with a 4-2 victory. Flower Mound won Game 1 on Thursday, 6-4.
The win sends the Jaguars to the area round of the playoffs where they await the winner between Mansfield and Haltom, which concluded Saturday (results not available as of press time). Flower Mound also exacted a measure of revenge in the win after the Jaguars were swept in the first round by the Cowboys last season.
Coppell, meanwhile, bows out in the bi-district round for just the second time in the past six years.
"This was huge for us to not have to go to a Game 3," Amrine added. "They're a great team over there. Coppell is outstanding. But we did enough tonight and last night to get two wins in two great games. They were classic games and it was a lot of fun and now we get to keep playing."
Gunter picked up the win on the mound, firing 5.2 innings of six-hit baseball before giving way to Andrew Vinson in the bottom of the sixth. Gunter surrendered two runs (one earned) with seven strikeouts, including getting out a bases-loaded jam with one out in the bottom of the fifth.
Vinson entered in the sixth with a runner at second and two outs, recording the third out via strikeout before fanning a pair in the bottom of the seventh to secure the save. He had to work for it, however, surrendering a one-out single allowing Coppell's No. 3 hitter Craig Aikin to reach the plate as the tying run. But the Jaguars could breathe easy when Aikin's high-fly dropped into the glove of center fielder Connor Wanhanen.
"I went out to Gunter in the fifth and told him that he had done everything he could for us tonight," Amrine said. "He just needed to focus in and finish. He got us to the sixth and seventh with a lead. That's what we needed and Andrew came in and finished them off.
"We have great arms. We have to be able to get to them and use them and that's what we did tonight."
Vinson also went 3-for-4 with a run at the plate, leading off with a double and scoring along with Gunter on St. Pierre's double down the third base line in the top of the first. One pitch prior, St. Pierre drove a ball down the right field line that landed just foul.
Coppell responded with a run of its own in the bottom of the first. Tyler Jones opened the frame with a single and moved into scoring position on the subsequent at-bat when Tyler Zabojnik reached on an error. Aikin followed with an RBI on a grounder to cut the deficit to 2-1.
The Jaguars had scoring chances in the second and third as well, getting two runners on in both occasions, and had the leadoff man reach in five of the first six innings. However, Elliot evaded damage by recording five strikeouts in the two innings combined. He finished with nine strikeouts in a complete game effort.
The game was delayed for 30 minutes in the second inning because of lightning in the area. But the break in the action didn't throw Gunter off his game as he did not surrender a hit until a one-out single in the bottom of the fourth by Coppell's Jeremy Mortensen.
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