East Lake Baseball Team Loses First Game of Season

Ranked as one of the top baseball teams in the Tampa Bay area, the East Lake Eagles started the season with eight straight wins. 

However, after six innings Thursday night, there is finally on "L" on the schedule. 

Tampa Jesuit defeated East Lake 12-2.

The baseball team posted a brief summary of the game on its website. 

It was a tough night for the Eagles. The game did not affect the District or Conference standings or any placement in a run for the post-season. It was for experience.  

Jesuit made the Eagles pay for every pitch over the plate and capitalized on high infield choppers as well as 2 miscues.  Dante Valenti held off the Tigers for a time with a strong effort over 3.1 innings.

East Lake coach Dan Genna told the Tampa Bay Times that it was important to get off to a quick start. That, unfortunately, did not happen. 

“We had a couple of errors and some chop base hits that hurt us in that first inning,” East Lake coach Dan Genna told the Times. “That’s going to keep me awake. If we just could’ve gotten out of that.”

East Lake ended the game with two runs on six hits with two errors.

To read the rest of the Times' recap of the game, click here. 

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