PANAMA CITY — You’ve got a pretty good idea you’re going to have a good day when your No. 9 hitter knocks in three runs and your No. 1 pitcher is energized by what he termed “real baseball weather.”
It was that kind of Panhandle Conference baseball opener for Gulf Coast as it downed Northwest Florida 9-0 on Wednesday in seven innings at Bill Frazier Field.
The win was only a small step in a 20-game conference schedule, but Commodores coach Mike Kandler gladly put it in perspective.
“There’s a certain amount of games you need to win and this just moved us one closer,” Kandler said. “I’d much rather start out 1 and 0, than 0 and 1.”
The win was Gulf Coast’s 12th consecutive as it moved to 23-8 overall. Northwest Florida is 21-7, 2-2 in the conference. The Raiders also dropped their series opener to Chipola in Marianna last weekend and came back to win the next two games.
They didn’t have any rebound in them Wednesday as the Commodores backed Matt Foster’s shutout pitching with an aggressive approach at the plate.
“Everybody’s just geared up for conference,” first baseman Trevor Davis said after he had singled, doubled and drilled a solo home run, his team-leading fifth of the season. “This is real baseball now.”
Foster, a sophomore bound for the University of Alabama, welcomed the warmer temperatures that invaded this week.
“People say that the cold weather doesn’t affect you that much, but it does me,” Foster said after scattering six hits and striking out 12. The game was shortened by the mercy rule in the seventh inning.
Foster stranded baserunners at second and third in the first inning and the Raiders had first and third with no outs in the third. Foster was helped out of the latter situation when catcher Cameron Ragsdale threw to shortstop Max Bartlett to nail Tanner Halstead trying to reach second after a pitch bounced in the dirt.
From that point Foster dominated the middle innings, retiring nine straight at one stage while registering most of his strikeouts. He had at least one in every inning and needed only 11 pitches to fan the side in the fourth.
“Except for the first inning I thought I had my command the whole time,” Foster said. “I was just trying to locate.”
With his teammates scoring in every inning except the sixth, neither did Foster allow himself to recall that Northwest Florida had rallied from a 9-1 deficit to defeat Chipola on Saturday.
“I didn’t even think about that,” he said. “I was thinking that I was comfortable throwing any pitch today.”
Wes Roberson was the No. 9 hitter with three RBIs, which included a two-run double down the left-field line in the third. Of Gulf Coast’s 12 hits, six were for extra bases.
In addition to Davis’ homer in the fifth, Christian Williams had a two-run shot earlier in the inning. While those were not notable on their own, NWFS pitchers had allowed only four homers in 27 games before Wednesday.
Max Bartlett, Williams and Nick Nelson all managed two hits for the Commodores, who early in the game did a lot of first-ball hitting against Raiders’ starter Brian Browning, who was 4-0 entering the game.
“We felt like Browning would be in the zone, so let’s let it loose,” Kandler said. “And I didn’t think we chased many bad pitches.”
Dakota Dean had two hits for the Raiders. Mosley graduate Andrew Deramo came on in relief in the fourth inning for Northwest Florida State. He allowed both Gulf Coast home runs, and otherwise struck out three and walked one.
The schools play the second game of the series 2 p.m. Friday in Niceville, and conclude with a 1 p.m. Saturday game at Bill Frazier Field.
Northwest 000 000 0 — 0 6 1
Gulf Coast 122 130 x — 9 12 1
Browning (L), Leone (3), Deramo (4) and Halstead; Foster (W) and Ragsdale.
E: NWFS (Bening), Gulf Coast (Roberson). LOB: NWFS 6, Gulf Coast 9. 2B: Nelson, Ragsdale, Davis, Roberson. HR: Davis, Williams. SB: Hathcock. HBP: by Browning (Williams), by Foster (Halstead). RBIs: Roberson 3, Williams 2, Davis 2, Bartlett, Ragsdale.