MCKINNEY- Plano East, which overcame a slow start in district, used the same timely hitting and solid defense to overcome a nearly 2-hour rain delay for a 7-2 victory over Colleyville Heritage in Game 1 of a Class 5A Region I area round best-of-3 series.
The brother tandem of senior leftfielder Jacob Boucher and junior pitcher Ryan Boucher led an 11-hit splurge and held a hard-hitting Heritage to four hits. In a series that was moved earlier in the day to McKinney Boyd from Coppell due to weather concerns, the teams waited out late afternoon rains sitting in buses before East (20-12-1) was able to take a 3-0 lead in the top of the second. Game 2 will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at Boyd with Game 3 if necessary 30 minutes following.
Jacob Boucher drove in East’s first run with a ground single to right and scored to make it 3-0 on a groundout. East stroked three consecutive singles to right and took advantage of a Heritage (27-5) error to score on four, well-placed singles.
“We’re not going to come in and knock it around but we’ve got a good players who hit it where the pitcher is throwing it,” 10-year East coach Travis Collins said. “We’re a team that needs to get some hits together, get some pitching and play defense. We started 1-2 in district and our seniors did a good job of saying, “this isn’t how we’re going out” and we put together a 10-game winning streak right smack in the middle of district.
”The weather was out of the ordinary, but we told them it was going to be that way. That we may spend some time driving around in a bus. They handled it well."
Jacob Boucher ended with three RBI on two singles and his double to right was East's only extra base hit but he was left on second in the fifth. East senior third baseman Jacob De La Cruz had a pair of RBI singles. East had a 5-0 lead on seven hits through three innings and led 6-2 after De La Cruz’ second run-scoring single in the fourth.
Right-hander Ryan Boucher pitched well to contact and got errorless play from his defense. In leftfield, his
brother Jacob chased down two hard-hit outs to the warning track and rightfielder Ryan Kravik made a catch at the 330-foot sign at the fence down the line in right. East had an inning-ending double play in the sixth and De La Cruz made a diving stop at third to get the game’s final out.
Heritage junior right fielder Cody Thomas pulled a 2-run line drive homer to right in the third for Heritage’s only RBI to pull within 5-2.
“Heritage hit some balls hard but they were right at us,” Collins said. “It’s a positive to win Game 1 and not have to win two. But we know we still have to get 21 more outs and have the lead against a very good team.”