HARLINGEN — The Brownsville Hanna Golden Eagles all but closed the door on Harlingen’s playoff hopes Tuesday evening.
After Hanna’s leadoff hitter Jay Medina set the tone by sending a ball over the fence, the rest fell together nicely for the Eagles. Hanna scored one run in the first, two in the third, four in the fifth, five in the sixth and topped it off by plating two in the seven to defeat the Harlingen Cardinals 14-4.
The win improved the Eagles to 7-4 in District 32-6A and, more importantly, pulled ahead of Harlingen by three games with three games remaining.
“We have definitely been playing much better baseball these past couple of weeks,” said Hanna head coach Jameson Wicks. “We had a little bit of a slide their early in district and the team has faced some adversity, but we have definitely fought back and I feel like we are playing our best baseball.
“But anything can still happen because we have three games and they have threes and nothing is solid yet and even the teams in the top of the district are still battling.”
Despite starting the season 0-3, the Eagles have won eight of their last nine games.
With the loss, Harlingen fell to 6-7 in the district and need to win out and hope Hanna loses next week to have any hope of a playoff spot.
Despite the final tally, the contest was much closer that the closing score indicated. Harlingen matched the Eagles run-for-run by answering with a run of its own in the first and two runs in the third as both went into the top of the fifth tied at 3-3.
In the fifth, the Eagles’ offense came alive as Ryan Casas hit a three-run RBI double to push Hanna’s lead to 7-3. However, that wouldn’t be Casas final RBI of the night as the right fielder hit another three-run RBI double in the sixth inning.
“Ryan is a workhorse,” said Wicks. “That guy has had to battle through quite a few things. He has a lot on his shoulders right now and for him to come out and have a game like tonight it was really special.”
Harlingen travels to Hanna on Friday before playing San Benito next week.
