West Park wins first 2 games of Boras Invite

West Park's varsity baseball team kept rolling along during the first day of the Boras Invitational on Monday, as the team picked up two more wins to improve to 16-1 on the season. The Panthers opened the day with a 4-2 win over Cardinal Newman before getting by Oak Ridge, 8-6. The Panthers third game of the tournament was schedued for Wednesday. In their opening game against Cardinal Newman, the Panthers trailed 2-0 before rallying for four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to win 4-2. With one out, Ayden Deome tripled to center field to start the rally. Nick Pajcin drew a walk before Jace Oliver singled in Deome to make it 2-1. Pajcin advanced to third on a wild pitch before the second out of the inning. Pajcin then tied the game, scoring on an error by Cardinal Newman's first baseman. Aiden Joosten then struck out, but the catcher couldn't corral the ball and his wild throw to first allowed two more West Park runs to score to make the score 4-2. Mason Zobel threw six innings and allowed two runs on five hits, while striking out six before Parker Mitchell came in to get the last three outs of the game, striking out two. In the win over Oak Ridge, Jayden McNeal, Ryan Alemi and Pajcin each had two hits. McNeal scored and drove in a run; Alemi scored twice, while Pajcin scored twice and drove in a run. Deome had one hit, drove in two runs and scored another. Ethan Silva and Jesse Palmer also drove in runs. "We are playing with a lot of confidence," West Park coach Ben Petersen said. "The boys know it doesn't fall to any one guy to get it done; it's a different hero each day so we're able to play a lot more loose. "We're riding a lot of momentum, but also know we are good and do the little, controllable things well: preparing, energy, togetherness etc. Our mentality is West Park vs. the game of baseball; it doesn't matter who we are playing that day, we just need to show up and give it our best."