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PAT McCANN Executive Sports Editor The most overpowering aspect of this year’s Gulf Coast baseball team is probably its record. The Commodores are a gaudy 28-7, but not because they have a number of fence crashers or a pitching staff that throws blips on a radar screen. They displayed their winning brand of baseball while beating North Florida, 5-1, in the first game of a Panhandle Con ference doubleheader Tuesday at Commodore Stadium. The Commodores got solid pit ching, a three-hitter by Bill Brash, supported him with a stingy defense, ran the bases aggressively and now and then came up with a key base hit. The second game showed that they are an ordinary team when they go away from those strengths. Pitchers Brian Walsh and Ian Porter surrendered 12 hits, though they were never manhandled, the defense allow ed two run-producing errors and a key passed ball, and North Florida came up with a seven-run inning to steal a split, 10-4. The loss dropped the Com modores a game behind Chipola, which swept last place Pensacola 1-0, 3-0 on Tuesday. Chipola is 8-2, Gulf Coast 7-3, North Florida 4-6 and defending champion PJC 1-9. There is a lot of baseball left to be played, even though the Commodores played too much baseball in the sixth inning of the second game. They were four outs away from a sweep before seven con secutive Sentinels reached. Not a big-inning offensive team, they were unable to respond. “We just self-destructed,’ said GCCC coach Bill Frazier celebrating his 51st birthday Tuesday. ‘‘We have been play ing clutch baseball, but it was just a giveaway.” North Florida (22-16) scored seven times after two were out, and the only ball hit out of the infield was on the ground. The Sentinels combined five singles four of them infield hits two walks, an error, and a wild pitch to overcome a 4-2 deficit. Steve Henderson's two-run home run in the fourth inning, his fourth of the season, had given Walsh a two-run cushion. The left-hander from Liverpool, N.Y., entered the sixth having retired six straight, but sur rendered his first walk of the game to Chris Norton. Two outs later, with Jerry Strauss aboard via a fielder’s choice, Daron Washington reached on a high bouncer back to Walsh, and Danny Pottle grounded a run-scoring single to right field. When Walsh walked No. 8 hit ter John Arnold to load the bases, Frazier brought in Ian Porter in relief Porter got Shane Cannon to hit weakly to shortstop Kevin Polcovich, but the sure-handed freshman looked at second, hesitated, and had no play as Washington scored the tying run. Porter then struck out Scott Haly, but the ball got past cat cher Randy Wilder allowing the go-ahead run to score. When Mark Mercer grounded tamely up the middle, Porter deflected the ball with his pitching hand, all runners were safe and it was 6-4 The bases were still loaded when Norton came up for the se cond time. With the baserun ners moving on a full count, he grounded sharply to second baseman Mark Barker. Barker made a nice stop, but while hur rying his throw gunned wildly past Henderson at first, and all three runners came around. North Florida added another run in the seventh. “We haven't had an inning like that all year,”’ said Coach Phil Hamilton, whose program at North Florida is only three ee old and still in the uilding process. ‘‘We beat Pen sacola 12-2 last time and it was the first time the school had See GCCC, 30 Julian Kilichowski (16) barrels in on an attempted steal. a Har
Newspaper Details
Panama City News Herald
Panama City, Florida, US
Wed, Apr 05, 1989
Page 37
Full Page
Clipped by
Mercedes W.
USA 08 Jul 2026
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