baseball Archive

In what might very well be his final home game as a Crestview Bulldog, senior Anthony St. Vincent was lights out on the mound as the Bulldog baseball team hosted West Florida in the last regular season home game of the year. St. Vincent threw a complete game shutout in the 7-0 win over the Jaguars.

Powered by a third inning grand slam home run off the bat of Maddox Smith, Baker rolled to a 16-8 baseball win over Laurel Hill on Tuesday. The Gators were firmly in control of the game from the outset, scoring four runs in the top of the first and never looking back.

It’s been said that baseball is a funny game. Balls hit like heat seeking missiles are caught and big cuts that produce swinging bunts produce runs.

Crestview baseball coach Tim Gillis will be one of the first to tell you Connor Riffe has a good baseball future ahead of him if he continues to put in the work.

Riffe, a junior, plays first base and outfield for the Bulldogs and leads the team in runs batted in with 10. At 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds, Riffe is one of the biggest players on the team.

A tough week for the Crestview baseball team got tougher Friday night as the Bulldogs hosted a talented Catholic team. Boy are the Crusaders talented. Catholic pounded out 11 runs and Crusader pitch Jackson Khor threw a complete game shutout in an 11-0 win that was called after six innings.

To paraphrase the old baseball poem, “Casey at the Bat,” there was no joy in Crestview on Tuesday night, 13 Bulldog batters struck out. The 13 strikeouts were only a small part of the story as Crestview only had two hits and nobody reached base after the fourth inning. Ironically, Jaden Appleby reached base on a third strike passed ball. The anemic offense by the Bulldogs wasted a stellar pitching performance by Anthony St. Vincent.

There was no April’s Fool joke on the Baker baseball team Monday as the Gators played host to Ponce De Leon. Four Gator pitchers, Joel Morse, Maddox Smith, Wyatt Straight and Judah Morse, combined to hold the Pirates to six hits and didn’t all an earned run.

Powered by an eight-run second inning, the Baker baseball team made quick work of Laurel Hill in a battle of North Okaloosa County neighbors and District 1-1A rivals. When the game ended after the top of the fifth inning due to the run rule, the Gators had a 13-2 win in their return to action after spring break.

When the umpire yelled, “Play Ball,” to start the baseball game between Crestview and Pace on Wednesday night, it’s doubtful anyone present realized how long the Bulldogs and Patriots would play. The game was one part an endurance contest and two parts a pitching battle that went 12 innings. In the end, it was a great high school baseball game. And as the cliché goes, it was ashamed one team had to lose.

The age-old question of whether a baseball team starting spring break or ending spring break might have been answered on Friday night when Crestview traveled to Pensacola to take on Pine Forest. Okaloosa County schools were scheduled to return to class on Monday, March 25 while Escambia County students were celebrating the start of the week away from the classroom Friday evening. In this case it was the team returning to school that had the upper hand. Or it might just be that the Bulldogs are better than Eagles in taking the 9-2 win.