ROBERTSDALE, Alabama - The Foley Lions and the Robertsdale Bears received great pitching performances by their starters en-route to a double-header split at Robertsdale High on Saturday.

Game One featured two tough lefties that both went the distance giving both their teams a chance to start the day off with a win. Robertsdale’s starting pitcher, Tony Kucera out battled Foley’s starter, Zach Melton giving the Bears a 5-2 win.

Foley got the scoring going early in the first inning when the first four batters reached base including Maison Taylor and Brax Garrett who each had a run batted in, in the first inning.

After letting up a couple runs in the first Kucera battled back and held the Lions scoreless throughout the rest of the game.

“The big thing was the first inning. I told him it was the first inning and to minimize the damage its 2-0 let’s not make it 5-0. We need minimize the damage and we came in and scored two in the next half inning.” Robertsdale head coach Kevin Raley said.

Kucera and the offense made up for the two runs when Tanner Boots smacked a two-run double to tie the game at two.

The game stayed tied at two until the fifth inning when Tanner Boots again came through with a slap bunt single that soared over the drawn in first basemen.

“We sac, hit-and-run every day at practice as part of our batting practice. It was a situation that was going to give us a big hole on the right side and Boots did a great job.” Raley said. “It wasn’t a great pitch to hit but he stuck his barrel out there and booted it out there.”

The Bears carried over that momentum to the seventh inning when Kucera finished up his complete victory. Overall he finished by letting up two runs while striking out 5 batters.

The second game went very similar to how the first game went. Only this time it was the Lions who were the benefactor of great starting pitching.

Taylor Gibson, like both pitchers in the first game, went the complete seven innings leading to his team getting the win and splitting the double header.

“We had three pitchers in this series that pitched really well for us. They did their job and we just have to do our job behind them,” Lion head coach Steve Garrett said. “I thought we came out flat and we were up and down. That is a sign that we are learning how to win. Robertsdale did a good job they beat us in the second game (game one of double-header). Their pitcher pitched a great game and they did what they were supposed to do.”

Taylor completed the second game of the double header going all seven innings and only allowing one run that came in the seventh inning. He also struck out five Bear batters.

The Lions scored two runs in the top half of the second inning when Jalen Henry plated two runs on an RBI base hit. The Lions added single runs in the 6th and 7th innings to give the Lions the 4-1 win.

Robertsdale will play April 9 on the road against UMS-Wright.