No. 3 Indians make it five out of six

By By DUSTIN KENT, Floridan Sports Editor
Published: February 10, 2010

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The No. 3 Chipola Indians baseball team defeated No. 12 St. Petersburg for the second time in as many days Monday at Chipola field, blanking the Titans 5-0 in seven innings.
Garrett Baker started on the mound and picked up the victory for Chipola, pitching five scoreless innings, striking out five and walking two.
Duncan Midkiff pitched the final two innings for Chipola, allowing just one hit and one walk. Baker and Midkiff combined to limit St. Petersburg to just four hits on the day.
Still, Chipola’s lead was just 1-0 until the Indians’ offense broke out in the bottom of the sixth inning, with four runs.
A two-run single by Cody Martin put the Indians up 3-0.
Aaron Etchison and Jonathan Gilbert also added RBI singles in the inning. Etchison was one of five Indians with two hits, and the Chipola catcher drove in two runs on the day.Gilbert, Blake Newalu, Andy Fermin, and Michael Revell all had two hits each. The win was the fifth for the Indians in their last six games, moving them to 5-3 on the season.
“We’re starting to play a little bit better,” Chipola coach Jeff Johnson said. “I figured the more live pitching and the more live swings we got, that would happen. We didn’t get a lot of time to do that in the preseason, but we seem to be playing better.
“Any time you can beat St. Pete, that’s a good win. It’s good to get them a couple of times, but we know we’ve still got a long way to go ourselves.”
On Sunday, Rodney Quintero and Johnny Cristi combined for Chipola on the mound to limit the Titans to six hits and two runs in a 6-2 Indians victory.
It was the fourth time in the last five games that Chipola pitching has held an opponent to two or fewer runs.
Johnson said he wasn’t surprised to see his pitching staff start to assert itself early on.
“I felt like that would be a strength,” the coach said. “We’ve still got some guys who are not where they need to be, but we’ve gotten some good quality starts from our starters for the most part.
“Baker pitched well (on Monday). He competed well, and he got out of some tough spots. He had a runner on third with one out, a runner on second with none out twice, and he got out of it. That showed a lot.”
The Indians next take on Alabama Southern today on the road, a team which fell to Gulf Coast 9-8 on Monday in Panama City.
“They’ve got a good little club,” Johnson said of Alabama Southern. “They played Gulf Coast pretty tough.
“We haven’t been on the road much, so that will be interesting. It’s a long bus ride, and it’s always interesting to see what you do on the road, how the kids react. I want to see how our leadership is. You learn a lot more about a team on the road a lot of times.”
Chipola returns home on Friday for a pair of games against Darton at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.