Not that the Cypress Creek baseball team lights up scoreboards on a regular basis anyway, but the Cougars knew they probably wouldn’t Saturday.

That ended up fine with them.

Playing their third game in five days, the Cougars’ impressive turnaround continued at Strake Jesuit, where four sacrifices and five Crusaders errors helped pave the way for a solid if unspectacular 7-3 win in a District 17-5A game.

One year after going winless in the district, Cy Creek improved to 15-9 overall and 9-4 in 17-5A, good for a tie for second place. The win put them 3 ½ games ahead of the fifth-place Crusaders with three district games remaining.

“When you play three games in a week (Tuesday, Friday and Saturday), you’ve got to do whatever you can. You’re not gonna go out there and pound the ball every game,” Creek coach Mike McCollum said. “Our guys are kind of tired and we felt we’d have to small ball them a little bit. The wind was blowing in so we didn’t expect any big (fly balls) to the outfield. We just put the ball in play and did a great job of bunting and running the bases.”

Strake Jesuit (13-8, 5-6) committed errors to start the first and second innings, paving for a 3-0 Creek lead. Two sacrifices led to a fourth run in the third, and Creek scored its final two runs when Strake Jesuit committed two errors on the same play in the fifth.

“We know we’re not gonna hit home runs so we’ll go out and steal bases and do everything we have to do to win; make plays in the field,” said Cougars leadoff hitter Matt Adams, who hit an RBI single, was hit by a pitch, walked and had an RBI single. “There have been a few games where we’ve hit home runs, but most of the time this team is gonna bunt runners over and steal bases.”

Creek has only two players with varsity experience remaining from last year’s team. McCollum is a first-year coach who previously was at Terry in the Lamar Consolidated ISD.

Adams reached on an error to start the game and scored on cousin Andrew Adams’ singled to center.

Brad Orosey reached on an error to start the second and scored on a sacrifice. Another sacrifice scored Walter Avant for a 3-0 lead.

Back-to-back sacrifices scored Matt Adams for a 4-1 lead in the third. He walked to begin the inning.

Adams singled home Greg Martinez to make it 5-1 in the fourth. After the bottom of the inning, two Strake Jesuit fans upset with the umpiring were thrown out.

Andrew Adams led off the fifth with a single to right and advanced to second on a Justin Sarabia walk. Both scored when Orsey’s grounder to third was underthrown to first, then thrown away on a pickoff attempt at third.

Cy Creek has a pivotal game against the other second-place team, Langham Creek, next Saturday.

“We’re good for about five or six runs usually,” McCollum said. “Our pitching has been phenomenal. If we can get five or six runs, we have a great chance of winning.”

The Crusaders scored in the second, when Tanner Hahn walked and scored on a Travis Perkins single, and tacked on two runs in the seventh.

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