San Diego Prep Baseball : Lincoln Beats Hoover on Tucker’s Homer

Horace Tucker made up for a lot of mistakes with one swing Wednesday afternoon.

Tucker, Lincoln High’s center fielder, hit a three-run home run in the seventh inning to give the Hornets an 8-7 victory at Hoover in a City Central League game.

Afterward, there was a celebration in the Lincoln dugout. Tucker’s mood, however, was sullen.

“It may not look it, but I guess I’m happy,” Tucker said. “I made so many mistakes earlier in the game. I’m happy that I was able to make up for it.”

Tucker was charged with only one error, but his two baserunning mistakes early in the game took Lincoln out of potentially big innings.

In the third inning, he was on second with no outs when Hoover pitcher Jake Tyseling threw a wild pitch. Tucker hesitated for a moment, then decided to try for third. He was out by 10 feet. Lincoln scored three runs in the inning but could have had more.

In the fourth, Tucker was at second again, this time with one out. Anthony Johnson singled to left-center, apparently scoring Anthony Peevy from third and Tucker from second. After he crossed the plate, however, Tucker was ruled out for missing third base.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so many mistakes,” Lincoln Coach Shan Deniston said. “Somehow we keep pulling these games out.’

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The victory boosted Lincoln’s record to 8-5 in league and 16-9 overall. Hoover, also 8-5 in league, is 11-10 overall. The teams are tied for second place, a half-game behind San Diego, with two games remaining.

“Maybe it’s because we’re so young that we make these mistakes,” Deniston said. “We’ll have to pull ourselves together if we can get into the playoffs.”

Mistakes are nothing new for Lincoln. In one three-game stretch this season, the Hornets made 24 errors. Still, they won two of those games.

Against Hoover, they committed three errors in the field and many more on the bases.

Hoover led, 7-5, going into the top of the seventh but pinch-hitter Eugene Howard and Peevy singled with one out. Tucker then hit his game-winning shot over the 20-foot fence in right-center field off reliever Sal Ceballos.

“I was looking for something I could hit on a line,” Tucker said. “But he fell behind me in the count (3-1) and I was looking fastball. I was waiting for it.”

After he hit it, he watched it.

“I knew it was gone,” he said.

Also gone was Hoover’s lead. The Cardinals had scored five runs in the bottom of the third to take a 5-3 lead before Lincoln tied the score with a run in the fourth and a run in the fifth.

In the bottom of the fifth, Hoover went back ahead. With two out and runners at second and third, Gus Garcia hit a slow chopper to the left of the mound. Kevin Mitchell fielded the ball cleanly but threw high to first, and Garcia beat the throw for an infield single. Ricardo Salvino followed with a double to right, scoring Tyseling to make the score 7-5.