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Hawks win third consecutive tournament
From sports staff reports
Baytown Sun

Published June 20, 2008
Pitching is the name of the game and the Baytown Hawks had the best in Lucas Mata.

Mata, widely considered as the best men’s fast pitch softball hurler in the world, led the Hawks to the championship in the Houston Sportsmen Father’s Day Tournament last weekend.

The Argentinean was named the Most Valuable Pitcher in the tournament, picking up four wins while giving up three hits and striking out 38. The Hawks have now won 16 games and three tournaments in a row, including the 12th Annual Castro Concrete Softball Tournament in June.

Baytown opened the tournament with a hard fought 7-6 win over Houston GEO-PER. The Hawks trailed 6-4 going into the bottom of the seventh and scored two runs to tie the game. Mata entered the game in relief and struck out eight of the nine batters that he faced to pick up the win as Baytown scored the winning run in the bottom of the ninth.

The next game lacked the drama of the first as the Hawks picked up a 13-0 win over the Houston Dynamo. Lalo Escobedo picked up the win on a one-hitter. Mata followed up with a one-hitter in a 6-0 win over Austin Castro.

The Hawks finished pool play with an 11-1 win over the Austin Blue Jays to advance into bracket play undefeated. It was there that Mata took over and proved unbeatable.

The pitcher threw two one-hitters as Baytown defeated Houston Sportsmen 2-0 and Killeen Elite 1-0. Charlie Pena had the game-winning hit in both games and was named Most Valuable Player.

Andy Ortiz, Landy Rodriguez and Manny Mata were each named to the all-tournament team.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 8:06 am and is filed under Tournaments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.