BLOWOUT BY STORM
Cleveland wins spot in today’s 6A title game with easy win over Piedra Vista
To put a bow on the 2017 high school baseball season, it’ll be the newcomer and the blue blood.
The top two teams from this year’s Class 6A playoffs, La Cueva (27-1) and Cleveland (24-7), will close out the year
when they collide at 6 tonight at Isotopes Park.
The Bears and Storm posted semifinal victories Friday at Isotopes Park, setting up this intriguing final-game matchup. They did not face each other in the regular season. No. 1 LA CUEVA 5, No. 5 CARLSBAD 3: Here’s the set-up: The Bears and Cavemen are tied 2-2 in the top of the seventh. There are runners at second and third with two outs, and La Cueva’s leader in average, home runs and RBIs — third baseman Richard Ware — is stepping into the box.
There is an open base at first. Carlsbad rolls the dice and pitches to him. The Cavemen got savagely burned. Ware hit a towering two-run triple to the warning track in left, scoring two runs, and that at-bat was the difference for nationally ranked La Cueva, which won its 27th straight game.
“I think it was a curveball, and I just waited back on it,” said Ware. “And at the last second, I got the barrel on the
ball.”
“I really don’t second guess it,” Cavemen coach Cody May said of his decision to pitch to Ware.
Ryan Phillips drove home Ware moments later for a 5-2 lead. Carlsbad picked up a run in the bottom half, but never had the tying run on base.
Meanwhile, La Cueva sophomore Ben Schoneman (10-0) pitched an outstanding game, striking out 11 and surrendering just four hits.
The Bears put up two runs in the first inning against Carlsbad starter Nate Arrington, who pitched extremely well. Phillips had an RBI single to score Jack Pineda, and Phillips later scored on a throwing error.
Schoneman was throwing a shutout until the sixth. Arrington and Mason Estrada then barely beat out infield singles. Trevor Rogers followed with a 415-foot, two-run triple to the warning track just to the right of the hill in center field.
Those were the first runs La Cueva had allowed in the state tournament, dating to last weekend. But then Schoneman struck out the Nos. 4 and 5 hitters in the Carlsbad order, Will Fiala and Rio Granger, which stranded Rogers at third base.
“I was just trying to make sure that run didn’t come home,” Schoneman said.
That nifty escape left La Cueva’s head coach shaking his head.
“To have the composure to make those pitches, and not get caught up in the situation … it’s hard to believe he’s a sophomore,” Gerard Pineda said.
And when Schoneman got a strikeout to end it, La Cueva senior righty Jonathan Stroman, who beat Rio Rancho on Thursday night, was the first person out of the dugout to greet him.
“You think of me as the ace, but I’ll tell you right now, that’s the best pitcher on this team,” Stroman said.
Carlsbad (22-8) put up a spirited defense of its 2016 championship, and this was a young squad. The big loss will be Rogers, and the next time anyone sees him in a baseball uniform, he could be a millionaire. The Major League Baseball amateur draft begins June 12. No. 2 CLEVELAND 10, No. 3
PIEDRA VISTA 2: A year ago, almost to the day, there was misery. Friday, there was sheer joy.
The Storm advanced to its first championship game without any of the white-knuckle, late-inning dramatics that have shadowed it in this tournament. It has been a turbulent last few days, but Friday, Cleveland whipped the Panthers.
After losing a crushing state semifinal last May to Rio Rancho, Cleveland had nothing to impede it this time.
“I’m excited for these guys,” Cleveland coach Shane Shallenberger said, “and I’m excited for the opportunity.”
Nos. 3-7 in the Cleveland lineup produced 11 of the team’s 13 hits. And Nos. 4-7 — Jason Herrera, Giacomo Musante, Robert Healy and Jack Murano — were 9-for-14 with nine RBIs.
Which led to this statement from Piedra Vista coach Mike McGaha, which might have been partially tongue in cheek:
“When you know what pitch is coming, it’s pretty hard to miss,” he said with a tone that suggested frustration more than anger. “They were stealing our signs.”
“He is greatly mistaken,” Shallenberger said.
Cleveland scored all its runs in the second, third and fourth innings.
Murano’s two-run double highlighted a three-run third. Another two-RBI double by Murano, an opposite-field shot to left, keyed a three-run fourth. And Musante ripped a two-RBI double during a four-run fourth.
“This game was electric,” said Herrera, who went 3-for4. “I think if one of us gets going, we all get going, it’s just contagious.”
Murano, a 6-foot-7 junior who has committed to the University of New Mexico, pitched a complete game for the Storm and won his second game in as many days. He pitched two innings of relief in Thursday night’s 4-3, extra-inning quarterfinal victory over Volcano Vista.
“Right now, we’re at our best,” Murano (8-3) said after scattering five hits to Piedra Vista. “It’s a lot easier to go out and pitch when you don’t have any pressure on your shoulders.”
The Panthers (22-8), in their first 6A season, went 0-3 season against their District 1-6A rival.