Brickhouse Blanks Kingwood

THE WOODLANDS, Texas – The Woodlands High School baseball team has climbed to the top of the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association Poll and showed why Tuesday, blanking Kingwood 4-0 in a District 14-5A showdown at Scotland Yard.

The No. 1 state-ranked Highlanders jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning and pitcher Bryan Brickhouse sailed to a two-hit shutout. Brickhouse struck out 12 and issued just one walk in going the distance. He threw 65 strikes in his 94-pitch outing.

"It’s always nice when you’ve got a pitcher of Bryan’s ability,” Highlanders coach Ron Eastman said. “You give him a lead and he can get focused and get in a groove. We were able to give him a couple run lead tonight, so that was big for us.”

Sophomore Charlie Warren delivered three of the Highlanders’ six hits and scored a run. Andrew Godail and Alex Dunlap added one hit and an RBI each while Ryan Flynn doubled and scored a run for the Highlanders (17-2-2, 4-0), who continue to roll.

“We’re playing pretty good,” Eastman said. “We weren’t playing real well early. We were playing real hard and real gutsy early and I’ll take that anytime. But the last couple of weeks we’ve turned the corner.

“As of right now we’re real pleased with the effort. We’ve been talking about staying hungry and staying humble with our rankings and just how well we’re playing right now.”

But Eastman said he knows that even though the Highlanders are the only unbeaten team in district play, it’s still early and there’s a long way to go.

“It’s a tough district. Anybody in our district can beat anybody on any given day if you don’t come to play. So hopefully we can continue to do that.”

Eastman said the team is playing with a lot of confidence right now.

“Early on our defense was not very good and right now, we made a couple big plays defensively tonight to help ‘Brick’ out,” he said. “And we’ve been playing solid defensively for the last few weeks. So, lot of confidence out there.”