In what was the final high school baseball game for Tiger seniors, the Blue-and-Gold couldn’t quite overcome Lexington pitching and also couldn’t find any luck when they needed it.
As a result, RHS fell 2-1 to their Lee County neighbors.
“We couldn’t get that timely hit,” said RHS coach John Hooser. “Tra’on Crawford pitched his guts out and did an outstanding job.”
“Overall, it was a really clean game,” he said. “We didn’t make mistakes in the field but when it’s down to it, we just couldn’t get that hit.”
The Tigers led early when Crawford was able to score on a Mario Casarez ground out. Rockdale held on but couldn’t add to their lead, which came back to haunt them. LHS tied the game in the fourth when Colton Faske came home on a wild pitch.
After two consecutive at-bats for the Tigers where they got runners on base but wound up empty-handed, Lexington was able to take the lead, 2-1 on a single by Faske that brought in Kason Boyer.
That was enough to take down the Tigers.
“You have to tip your hat to Myles Miller of Lexington,” Hooser said. “He pitched a great game and kept us off balance.”
Crawford also led the Tigers at the plate, going two-for-four and Barcak and San Migel each had one hit.
This was the final season for Crawford, Devin Muston, Zakori Yanez, Kobe Mitchell and Davioun Scott.
HOOSER— Not only was it the last game for RHS seniors, it was also a farewell for Hooser, who was asked to join former Tiger football coach Jeff Miller’s staff at Class 6A Cypress-Fairbanks this fall.
“I’ve enjoyed my time here, especially with Tra’ and Zakori, I’ve had them for the last four years, they’re fine young men,” Hooser said. “But this freshmen and sophomore group, they’re going to win a ton of ball games.”
Hooser also described heading east to the Houston area school.
“It’s bittersweet, I got a call before spring break asking if I’d be interested and it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” Hooser said. “The list of schools I would’ve left Rockdale for was really, really short.”
“There might be two or three schools I would’ve considered and (Cy-Fair) was one of them,” he added. “I wasn’t trying to leave or looking to leave, it found me. I didn’t sleep much when the offer first came because I wanted to make the right decision. I hate leaving these guys because Mason, Mario, Cruz and the rest of them are tremendous kids and great baseball players. They are going to win a lot of games and they’re going to get the program where it needs to be.”
RHS finished sixth in District 19-3A with a record of 2-10.
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