FLATONIA — The Flatonia High School baseball team defeated Weimar High School April 15 at Bulldogs Field by a final score of 8-0.
Flatonia heated up with their bats about midway through the game and played stellar on the defensive end to hold Weimar scoreless for the shutout.
“Grinding out some good at bats,” said Flatonia head baseball coach Shawn Bruns on how they were able to get the victory. “We knew that we’d have to grind out some at bats and we got a few bunts there. Got a couple big base hits with two outs and increased the lead a little bit. The one run lead we had wasn’t gonna be enough unless we played stellar defense the rest of the way, so it was nice to have that six run cushion there in the fourth.”
Weimar just needed to get the bats going and ran into a really good Flatonia team.
“They were able to put some balls in play and get some hits,” said Weimar head coach Thomas Kielman. “We weren’t able to make the plays behind our guy. I thought our guy pitched well enough, but they were just better. You got to tip your hat to those guys. Those guys played hard, it’s a good baseball team.”
Bulldogs senior pitcher Titan Targac had a great outing on the mound and recorded his 500th career strikeout while also connecting on some big hits at the plate.
“It’s just about the ability that God gave me to do it,” Targac said. “It’s just believing in myself and believing in the ability that He gave me to do what I can out here on the field to help my team.”
Flatonia struck first in the bot tom of the third inning with a blooper to left field from Targac after a base hit and two stolen bases from Casen Perez.
Kellen Kutac then connected on a squeeze bunt in the bottom of the fourth inning right before an infield grounder for a base hit from Perez to make it 3-0, then Targac contributed again on a botched fly ball to left field, which was followed by a ground- er to the shortstop on a fielders choice to take a 5-0 advantage.
Flatonia kept tacking on the runs to surge ahead 7-0 on a shot to center that scored two runs. After a Weimar walk from Camden Morrison that didn’t cause any damage for Flatonia, Targac kept his bat going and helped the Bulldogs score their final run in the bottom of the sixth inning on a base hit to left, then closed out the game in the top of the seventh on the mound with three strikeouts to seal the 8-0 victory.
