West Orange baseball rallies for big 6-2 win over Apopka

APOPKA —With two outs in the top of the seventh inning and tied with the Apopka Blue Darters, 2-2, Ethan Jones singled in Deandre Shelton, pinchrunning for Garrett Milchin, to give the West Orange Warriors a 3-2 lead.

Then, just for good measure, the Warriors made it a full-fledged two-out rally, adding three more runs to take a 6-2 lead that would end up being the final score on Friday night.

The win salvaged a split in West Orange's home-and-home district series with the Blue Darters, giving the Warriors (6-5) a 1-1 record to start district play in 8A-3. Though the late rally is what sealed it for West Orange, it was a breakout pitching performance by D.J. Morland — who tossed the complete game victory for the Warriors — that put West Orange in position to win, in the first place.

"Coming into this season, D.J. was a pretty big question mark being a senior that hadn't thrown a whole lot of innings," Warriors coach Jesse Marlo said. "He gave us a good start last week in his first outing and this was, really, his second varsity outing and definitely the biggest game of his career — he just did everything we asked him to do."

Jones and Lane Cross each had a pair of RBI to lead West Orange at the plate. The Warriors will not host Trinity Christian on Monday before playing a home-and-home district series against Ocoee on Tuesday and Thursday.

"We've been, as a team, swinging the bats a lot better," Marlo said. "If we can improve other aspects of our game like we have the hitting, we should be fine as we continue to move on."