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St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School senior Bo Smith enjoyed hitting his first over-the-fence home run of the season so much Wednesday that he had to do it again.
In the same inning.
Smith turned on the first pitch of the fifth inning, sending it flying over the left field wall for a solo home run. After his teammates batted around the order, Smith stepped back to the plate and launched a three-run shot to left field, rounding the bases for the second time in a matter of minutes.
“I was expecting fastball because I’d been walked pretty much every time, so I jumped on it,” Smith said. “I had to get my get back from freshman year when I hit it off the wall.”
Smith led the Bruins to a 24-8 victory over crosstown rival Jesse Bethel. The senior has been on fire to start the year, batting 0.636 through 11 games.
“He definitely has the capability of bringing that big power to every game,” St. Pat’s head coach Brandon Brown said. “Those are the first two big flies of this year and I’m expecting a couple more as well.”
The Bruins came into Wednesday’s game after an 11-day hiatus and it showed early on.
After an RBI-single from Oscar Patino and a slew of fielding errors, St. Pat’s trailed 4-0 at the end of the first. An especially costly mistake came on a dropped third strike, which allowed two runs to score while the ball was errantly thrown around the infield.
“We have a lot of seniors and a lot of underclassmen that played varsity last year so there’s definitely no excuse for those errors in the first,” Brown said.
But once the Bruins shook off the rust, they never looked back.
St. Pat’s opened the third with three straight walks before Xavier Brewer cleared the bases with a double to left field. He was followed by RBI’s from Logan Lissner, Anthony Eyheralde and Denali Dilley, giving the Bruins an 11-4 lead.
“The guys just locked in,” Brown said. “Part of the problem at the beginning of the year was we were letting too many strikes go. Today they came out aggressive.”
Lissner came in for relief of Mathew Thacker in the bottom of the second, and allowed no hits and just one walk across his first two innings.
“He was huge,” Brown said. “We like to go to him or his brother especially in emergency relief to put somebody in real quick to settle everything down.”
After the Bruins added three runs in the top of the fourth, the Jaguars responded with a sacrifice fly from Devin Scott and an RBI-single from Xzavior Solis, narrowing the deficit to 14-8.
St. Pat’s put the game on ice in the fifth, scoring 10 runs off four RBI singles and Smith’s pair of home runs. Smith went 2-for-3 with two walks, and four RBI.
“It’s funny. I saw the first one before I even hit it, so that was God right there,” Smith said. “I just was fortunate enough to get two of them.”
The Bruins will look to sweep the Jaguars in the second leg of the series on Friday.
