Hewitt-Trussville rallies to defeat Bucs in Game 3

HOOVER – The Hoover High School baseball team surrendered the lead in the final inning and fell, 7-3, to visiting Hewitt-Trussville in Game 3 of the Class 7A first-round playoff series on Saturday afternoon.

“Our guys tried to make plays and just didn’t quite get it done,” fourth-year Hoover coach Adam Moseley said following the game. “I should’ve done a better job putting them in position to make a play. They did what their coach asked them to do.”

On Saturday, the Bucs went down 2-0 in the first inning, but battled back in the fourth inning with three runs to take the 3-2 lead. Peyton Wilson reached on a grounder to first base that took a bad hop and Sonny DiChiara followed with a walk. Preston Moore laced a single to score Wilson and Evan Veal’s single loaded the bases with nobody out.

Hewitt-Trussville starter Ed Johnson was able to coax a double play grounder from Daniel Swatek that scored the tying run and Nolan Hammonds followed with the go-ahead single.

Moore was the only Hoover player to register multiple hits in the contest. Johnson, making the first start of his career, limited the Bucs to six hits on the day.

The Huskies jumped out to the early lead with extra base hits from Johnson and Carson Skipper to start the game. Austin Bittle, running for Johnson, scored on Skipper’s triple and Skipper came around on Tyler Mauldin’s groundout.

But after the rocky first inning, Hoover starting pitcher Griffin Lape settled into the game. Lape allowed just one hit over the next five innings, but gave up a pair of hits to the first two batters in the seventh before being taken down.

“To hold it together, it says a lot about his character and what kind of person he is,” Moseley said.

The Huskies tacked on five runs in the big seventh inning, and Hoover was unable to mount a rally in the bottom half.

The Hoover careers of 13 seniors came to an end with the series defeat, the first four-year class that Moseley has seen through the program from start to finish.

“They’re like sons to me. They’re great representatives of our school and they’re going to be great leaders in the community. I’m very proud to coach them,” he said.

Hoover and Hewitt-Trussville split the first two games of the series on Friday. Click here for a recap of those two games. Hewitt-Trussville advances to face James Clemens in the second round.