Replay: Rummel rallies to halt St. Augustine win streak, 7-3

NEW ORLEANS – Two teams seemingly heading in different directions collided Friday afternoon at Kirsch-Rooney Stadium.

St. Augustine was red hot, winners of six straight games. Archbishop Rummel was ice cold, losers of five straight games. You can pretty much figure out what happened.

Rummel rallied past St. Augustine, 7-3, by overcoming a 3-0 deficit for a big win in a game shown live at CrescentCitySports.com.

Jackson Dennies starred on the mound and delivered the go-ahead two-run single, Kyle Walker went 4-for-4 with two RBI and three runs scored and Ron Franklin went 3-for-3 with an RBI and two runs scored.

Trailing 3-0, Rummel came through in the clutch, scoring all seven runs with two outs, a sight for the sore eyes of coach Nick Monica.

“We’ve had a lot of games that we’ve played in the last two weeks that we’ve outhit or been right there with the opponent but it hasn’t been a string of things,” Monica said. “Jackson came up with the big two-out hit, Ron had a two out hit, Chandler (Fields) had a two out hit, Kyle had a two out hit. There were a lot of two-out hits. That was the name of the game.”

St. Augustine took the lead in the top of the second inning on consecutive doubles by Jordan Vidato and Kenya Huggins to make it 1-0. A two out error scored a second run to make it 2-0.

St. Aug added a run in the top of the third on a single by Tannard Darensbourg, a walk to Eddie Davis, a walk to Mike Mims and a wild pitch which scored Darensbourg to make it 3-0.

Rummel got on the board in the bottom of the frame on a triple by Franklin and a two-out RBI single by Walker to make it 3-1. Chandler Fields followed with an RBI double to deep right, scoring Walker to make it 3-2.

The Raiders came up with two out magic again in the bottom of the fifth to take a 4-3 lead on a two-run single by Jackson Dennies.

Rummel extended its lead in the bottom of the sixth on a walk to Stephen Powers, a sacrifice bunt by Lance Johnson and a two-out, RBI double by Franklin to make it 5-3. Walker followed with an RBI single to make it 6-3 and another run scored to make it 7-3.

Dennies pitched six innings, throwing 109 pitches to pick up the win. He allowed three runs, two of which were earned runs on four hits. Dennies walked three and struck out six after a couple of rough outings. Hayden Elwell pitched a perfect seventh inning for the Raiders.

“It felt good to get back in the swing of things,” Dennies said. “I felt really good in the bullpen. We made some plays in the field. Those were big and we just played as a team today.”

Mims took the loss, going five and two-thirds innings, giving up six runs (five earned) on 10 hits. He walked four and struck out three and left in the sixth inning with tightness in his throwing arm. Ryan Stripling pitched the final third of an inning, allowing an unearned run.

A senior, Franklin went 3-for-3 with a single, double, triple, RBI and two runs scored.

“I had to do a lot to pick my team up today,” Franklin said. “We came out here with a lot of enthusiasm and we came as a team today. We compete every day.”

St. Augustine coach Al Robinson knew Rummel would be a tough out trying to end its losing streak

“We got to put people away,” Robinson said. “We had a chance to lengthen the lead and did not. They came back at us. They swung it well. We played good in the middle innings and kind of fell apart at the end. That’s baseball. We played well in the winning streak. We’ll see them again tomorrow. We hope to start another winning streak at us.”

The two teams conclude the two-game series Saturday at 2 p.m. at Wesley Barrow Stadium.

Final
St. Aug 021 000 0 3 4 2, 5 LOB
Rummel 002 023 x 7 11 1, 0 LOB
WP—Jackson Dennies (6-1)
LP—Mike Mims (5-4)
Time of Game: 2:25
2B—Jordan Vidato, Kenya Huggins
3B—Ron Franklin