ORANGE PARK - Orange Park pitcher Robert Barnett would anchor the Raiders defense through all seven innings on the hill, striking out four and working with catcher Devon Moore who protected home plate like Fort Knox.

After going all 21 outs, only one batter away from hitting pitch count, Barnett talked about his change-up pitch that no Indians seemed to get a handle on.
“It’s always been one of my best pitches,” said Barnett. “The change-up and my slider, I’ve always been dominant with that and my fastball almost as my secondary pitch. We’ve never 2-0’ed Keystone. Usually, 1-1 or they sweep us. This win is really special.”
Even with the visiting Keystone Heights High Indians getting eight runners on base, including the fifth inning with bases loaded, the Raiders would keep the Indians to a single run in Friday night’s 3-1 home win.
“We’ll take ugly wins over pretty wins every single day,” said Orange Park Head Coach George Eldridge. “Tonight, we got a really good pitching performance from Robert Barnett, some clutch defensive plays, and we know this is a big win for us, a bounce-back. One of the things we are stressing to them right now is to pick each other up. If a guy makes a mistake, don’t pound on him, that’s my job. Keystone had a tough loss last night just like we did. It’s tough to bounce back from those.”
Coming into tonight’s game, Keystone Heights was coming off a loss to the Buchholz Bobcats, only the third loss of the season. Last week, the Indians were riding a 10-game win streak when the Raiders played the Indians in Keystone Heights to hand them their only March loss. This was the first time in anyone’s memory that Orange Park swept the series between the two teams.
The Raiders got going early with Yaziel Del Valle, the first batter up, getting walked by the Indians, then Tyson Cruz driving Del Valle home with a line drive to center to put the Raiders on the board 1-0 in the bottom of the first inning.
At the top of the fourth, things looked like they were heating up for the Indians. With a walk to put Austin Smith on, Austin Musgrove doubled, pushing Smith to third base. With no outs, Brady Kerlin hit the ball back to the pitcher who got the ball to Moore at home plate to snuff out the advancing runner, one out. On the next play, a fly ball to right field was rocketed home to Moore for another play at the plate, then a turned double play to third to retire the inning.
With two outs in the top of the fifth inning, Keystone’s Andru Siemer grounded to the shortstop who couldn’t get a handle on the ball. Siemer then stole second base, setting himself up in scoring position. With two strikes and two outs, Alex Addington blasted a shot to center field scoring Siemer, putting some life into the Indian dugout. The Indians would load up the bases and look to finally get ahead of the Raiders, only to have their hopes dashed on a fly out to left field to retire the top of the inning, 1-1.
As quickly as the Indians turned up the wick to tie the game, the Raiders responded. With Nehemiah Stephenson dinking a single to get on first base with two outs, Del Valle singled down the third base line to put runners on first and second base. Robert Barnett followed with a fly ball to left, scoring Stephenson. With an overthrow at the plate, Del Valle rounded third, headed to home and got tagged by Indians pitcher Alex Addington, 2-1 Raiders.
The Raiders would add one more insurance run in the bottom of the sixth inning after Tyson Cruz doubled to start the inning, then have Devon Moore go deep to center field to score Cruz, 3-1.
Keystone Heights Head Coach Chris Roach summed up the game with “You have to show up to play baseball every night. The game doesn’t change, the opponent does. They (Orange Park) made really good defensive plays. We put a lot of balls in play. We just didn’t hit the ball effectively.”