Coaches, players and fans alike lauded the Houston Heat’s 18-U Black team scoring 13 runs Friday night against the Columbia Knights in the Houston Heat Summer Showcase.

Stopping short of calling it a typical effort – their coach made offensive production about the third thing he mentioned in an interview – the Heat nonetheless showed its true colors in a 12-run victory at the University of Houston’s Cougar Field less than a week after winning the Dallas Mustangs Classic.

“When I get on base I feel I’m gonna have the chance to run and score because we have a lot of strong hitters,” said leadoff hitter Marquis Kindle, from Lamar. “We hit the ball well and scored a lot of runs (in Dallas) even though we lost one game.”

The Heat victimized three Columbia pitchers Friday night, scoring five runs in the first inning and six more in the second to sprint to an 11-1 lead. The big blows were a three-run home run by Kingwood’s Jonathan Freemeyer in the first and a grand slam by Alex Black of The Woodlands in the second.

“I don’t know that we’ve been scoring a lot of runs but we’ve been scoring at least one more than the other team. That’s the big thing that’s important,” Heat coach Vinny Sinisi said. “We’ve been pitching well all summer and we’ve been hitting well and we’ve played pretty good defense. Can’t do much better than that.

“What we’ve been doing really well is executing hit-and-runs and running the bases well. Usually that’s tough with 17-year-olds; it’s tough for them to figure that out. But they have a lot to learn. We go to Atlanta (July 11-13 for the World Wood Bat Association 17U championships) and Joplin (Missouri) the next few weeks. They’re gonna see a lot.”

Fifteen teams are participating in the four-day Summer Showcase, which began Thursday and runs through Sunday at Cougar Park, Rice University’s Reckling Park and Bayland Park. Teams play at least four games apiece; there is no championship game because the event is held solely to market players.

That remains the bottom line to summer ball, as does the intent of fine-tuning in order to win in high school and college.

Heat pitcher Steven Murray, a senior-to-be at Memorial, is adjusting his pitching motion in order to increase velocity on his offspeed pitches.

“It was kind of a lackadaisical motion before and I’m just trying to get more intensity in it, I guess,” said Murray, who threw three shutout innings in relief Friday night. “I’m trying to build more power in my center and then just explode off the mound off the back leg. It’s been working for me.”

Other area players on Heat-Black include Memorial’s Nelson Laswell, Lamar’s Anthony Chacon, Neal Dennison and Matt Killary, Westside’s Matt Clayton, Katy’s Cale Hanson and Bellaire pitcher Tyler Duffie.

All will be seniors in 2008-09.

“We’ve had a lot of good pitchers. Michael Bentz (from Memorial) has been phenomenal and hasn’t given up a run,” Murray said. “All the pitchers have done really well.”

The Heat are scheduled to play the South Texas Sliders at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Bayland Park and have games Sunday at Reckling against the Arlington A’s and Kyle Chapman-Blue.

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