Mustang Americans top Welsh

ERATH – The Crowley Americans were eager to get their offense going Friday in their opening round game of the 2014 Mustang Super Regional.
So much so, that when Americans’ coach Alan Story won the pregame coin flip, he went against the grain and chose to be the visiting team instead of the home team.
That strategy paid off when the Americans plated seven runs in the opening frame and cruised to an impressive 14-2 victory over Welsh.
“We won the coin toss, but we wanted to set the tone early and so we elected to hit first to try and put some pressure on them and  that’s what we did,” said Story. “We hit the ball hard and we ran the bases well. They (Welsh) made a couple of errors that helped us out. We got a couple of runs there and then they dropped a couple balls and they (Welsh) kind of started hanging their heads so it was a good start for us.”
The seven-run first inning included a leadoff triple by Luke Hoffpauir and RBI singles from Hunter Hoffpauir and Blake Francis. Luke Hoffpauir then capped the inning with another triple in his second at-bat of the frame to plate the seventh run.
Welsh scored one run in the bottom of the first before Crowley tacked on two more runs in the top of the third.
Alex Stevens led off with a double and scored on a triple by Andrew Mouton before Lucas Simon, who doubled, crossed the plate on an error.
Davin Langley singled in the third and scored on a groundout by Parker Story.
The Americans plated four runs in the fourth inning on two hits and three walks. Hunter Hoffpauir had a double to start the inning and Luke Hoffpauir had an RBI single.
Luke Hoffpauir paced the Americans’ offense with three hits, including two triples and two RBI, while Hunter Hoffpauir had a single, a double and one RBI. Stevens and Simon each had doubles; Mouton tripled and drove in one run; Story and Francis each singled in a run and Langley had a single.
Story picked up the victory on the mound after limiting Welsh to two runs on two hits and three walks. He struck out seven in four innings.
“Parker struggled a little bit in the first inning with his control, but once the second inning came around he kind of got in a groove,” said the elder Story. “We needed that because we couldn’t afford to burn a bunch of pitchers with two games on Sunday. We needed somebody to come in and throw four innings tonight and Parker did a pretty good job of that. That was a big effort and we needed that.”