Burnet baseball loses to Lampasas
CAPTION: Burnet senior pitcher Cohen Jorpeland continues to do his part in keeping games close. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro
The Burnet High School baseball lost to Lampasas 6-4 March 24 and 3-2 March 27 in District 24-4A play.
No district team had a tougher start to the district season than the Bulldogs (6-14-1, 1-5) in facing the three playoffs from 2025 right off the bat.
“So it’s a difficult start to the to the district season, but you have to play them at some point in time whether you play all three back to back to back or whether you play them every other week,” head coach Russell Houston said. “It does put you in a small hole that we’re in right now, but it’s something that we’ve been in before. So it’s not like we aren’t able to dig our way out of it. We’ll have opportunities to do that.”
And while the contests didn’t turn out the way the Bulldogs wanted, Houston emphasized he saw a lot of good play from his athletes.
“Our kids were competitive and they fought quite a bit,” he said. “I thought we pitched well in both games. I think we pitched well enough to win both games.”
That’s a credit to hurlers Mason Watson and Cohen Jorpeland, who are the Tuesday and Friday starters. Houston noted the two are forcing batters to hit into routine defensive plays that illustrates the trust and belief the duo has in their teammates to make plays.
The difference right now is what’s happening at the plate.
“We just are not getting the two-out hitting right now currently,” the coach said. “And then you made some mistakes when we shouldn’t have in the first game, which hurt us a little bit. But (the March 27) game was a tough game. When you have runners in scoring position with two outs early in the ball game and you don’t get a hit with two outs, yeah, you strand too many runners. That’s the big concept of how you win high school baseball games or any baseball games is two-out hitting. If you can get hits with two outs, typically, there’s going to be runners on in those situations. Then you give yourself a better chance to win a baseball game.”
With the score tied 2-2 going into the seventh inning, Burnet had one out. The Badgers drew two walks and reached base to have three runners on. Lampasas scored the winning run when a ball hit a batter, allowing the runner at third to go home.
“So that’s the ball game,” Houston said. “But he also pitched the entire game, so it’s not like he didn’t give us a chance to win. I mean there’s lots of things that happened earlier also. If you can get the third out when they have runners all over the place, then you have a better chance of winning.”
Burnet travels to Taylor for a 6 p.m. first pitch Tuesday, March 31, then welcomes the Ducks Thursday, April 2, at 7 p.m.
“Obviously we’re in almost a playoff mentality right now,” the coach said. “It may not necessarily be where you have to win them all, but you have to win and you have to start winning most of them.”
And he believes the squads that survive the district race will be battle tested.
“I think anybody that comes out of this district is going to be competitive in the playoffs and have a chance to win round one,” he said. “I don’t know that it matters who comes out of this district, I think there’s going to be four teams that come out of this district that are going to be contested and ready to go. Does that mean all four of the teams that come out of this district are going to go win round one? Probably not, but I think they’re all going to have a chance to.”
