Coronado pushed the Falcon Hill Falcons to their absolute limit in a 3A Metro East conference battle. Small ball came up huge for the Coronado Dons, but it was not enough to sneak past them in a 7-4 loss.

The Falcons jumped off to an early 1-0 lead in the first inning courtesy of an Elijah Vargas single that scored Zach Langer.

The Falcons then tacked on three more runs in the third inning to extend the lead to four.

Down 4-0 in the third inning, Coronado's Drake Pfeiffer rallied his teammates to start chipping away at the deficit.

Pfeiffer stole home as Falcons catcher Hayden Adams tried to throw a runner out at second base. Pfeiffer passionately yelled at his teammates on the way back to the dugout to galvanize them after scoring the run.

“I always keep my teammates hype,” Pfeiffer said. “I need that motivation to keep going and it all starts with them.”

The Dons finally got to the Falcons’ starting pitcher, Hunter Reed, in the sixth inning. A pair of hits from Joe Schelski and Alexis Ochoa got the Dons going. Trevor Monday then ripped one to left-center to score Schelski.

Coronado’s sixth inning was as good of an example as any for how to manufacture runs, as it included a balk and two steals to tie the game.

Jackson Coup came into relief for the Falcons with runners on the corners. Both runners got a jump to try and steal, which caused Coup to balk, scoring Pablo Castillo.

“I just wanted to get on base,” Castillo said. “Anything can happen when you have runners on.”

Manny Leas then stole third base as Reed’s throw got by Vargas, leading Leas to steal home.

“We talked about being a little scrappier in practice yesterday,” said head coach Ryan Dyer. “We created some runs that we needed to tie the ballgame up.”

Dons starting pitcher Francisco Porras was strong throughout 5 2/3 innings of work with five strikeouts, but the Falcons scored three runs in the seventh inning, which proved to be the difference in the game.

“We need to keep our composure and not let up when things are good or bad,” said Porras. “Sometimes we like to get too excited when we’re rallying and forget that we have to finish the game out.”

The Dons fell to 1-7 and 0-1 in conference play. Dyer finds the positives in each game as he realizes his young team is growing.

“It was a team effort today. They made the routine plays, something that we’ve been struggling to do in recent games, they were patient and had a good approach at the plate,” Dyer said. “One through nine, everybody had an impact today.”

The Falcons finished with 12 hits, led by Langer, Kai Duda, Cole Lupien, and Hayden Adams, who each had two-hit games.

The Dons look to end their seven-game skid against Valley Christian on Wednesday.