Pine Island baseball hopes to ride momentum into 2nd "revenge" game

(ABC 6 News) — The Pine Island Panthers got a measure of revenge Saturday when they beat Caledonia 3-0 behind a shutout performance from pitcher Johnny Bauer.

Pine Island scored three runs in the first inning and let Bauer take care of the rest as he struck out 12 batters and only allowed 2 hits.

"Two of our six losses were to Caledonia last year so this is a pretty sweet one," Pine Island head coach Dan Drazan said. "Really sweet for Johnny Bauer. He had an arm injury early last year and he was not able to throw very much for us last year so this was huge for him. Great start for the season."

The Panthers now will look to ride Bauer’s hot hand as they take on the Rochester Lourdes Eagles on Tuesday. The Eagles are coming off a win where their pitcher was magnificent on the mound. In their April 4th win vs. Kasson Mantorville, Joe Sperry allowed one hit and struck out 11 in rout to an 8-1 victory.

Rochester Lourdes beat Pine Island three times last season, including in the Section 1AA semifinals. Coach Drazan says his team’s win against Caledonia builds momentum heading into their Tuesday matchup with the Eagles.

"Definitely gonna build a lot of momentum for us, a lot of confidence for us that we can compete with anybody in the section so we’ll definitely need to bring our A-game on Tuesday when we get Lourdes coming here to town. Should be a fun one."