CYPRESS – Getting a bunch of hits is great for a baseball team.
It’s better when those hits are bunched together.
Cypress on Wednesday got the timely hits the Centurions have been frequently missing this season in a 7-4 win over JSerra in a nonleague baseball game at Cypress High where two teams in the Orange County Top 10 met for the first game of a two-game home-and-home series this week.
Centurions senior designated hitter John Short singled to drive in a tying run in the first inning and added a sacrifice fly for another RBI in the sixth. Junior catcher delivered a two-run single in their four-run fourth inning.
Cypress, No. 6 in the Orange County rankings, improved to 5-4. No. 4 JSerra is 3-2.
The teams play each other at JSerra on Friday at 4:30 p.m. Both are in the Boras Classic South tournament that begins Tuesday.
JSerra junior center fielder Blake Bowen hit a two-run home run and drove in another run with a sacrifice fly.
Short said it was a relief to get the hits when they were most needed.
“We’ve had timely hitting,” he said, “but just in the right spaces. In this game we just did our thing.”
Cypress senior designated hitter John Short drove in two runs in the Centurions’ 7-4 win over JSerra in a nonleague baseball game at Cypress High on Wednesday March 19 2025. (Photo by Steve Fryer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
JSerra took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning. Tyler Dunning walked on four pitches, went to second base on a passed ball and to third on a wild pitch and scored on Carter Meza’s opposite-field single to right field. Meza eventually advanced to third base and scored on Bowen’s sacrifice fly to center field.
In the Cypress half of the first, Johnson reached on an infield single, moved to second base on a wild pitch and scored on Shorts’s line-drive single to center field to make it 2-1.
The Centurions tied it in the bottom of the second inning. With two outs Landon Anderson was on board on an error and would score on a wild pitch.
Cypress took a 3-2 lead in the third inning. Short walked, stole second base and on his steal of third base the throw there was wide of the mark, allowing Short to score.
Another JSerra error contributed to Cypress’ three-run fourth inning that included Johnson’s two-run single that made it 6-2.
Bowen, who committed to Oregon State, powered a high fly over the left-field fence in the top of the sixth inning to cut the Lions deficit to 6-4. Cypress got an insurance run in the bottom of the inning on Short’s sacrifice fly that drove in Garret Rodriguez for the final 7-4 score.
After a rough start in the first inning, Cypress senior right-hander Aiden Francho shut out the Lions in the second, third and fourth innings. Junior lefty Nick Nelson pitched the fifth and six innings for the Centurions and senior lefty pitched a clean seventh.
Cypress coach John Weber was pleased with how the team overcame the shaky start.
“We didn’t let things compound any further,” he said. “We struck back and got a run in the first. I like the way we fought today and we got some timeliest hits which we haven’t been getting.”
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