Deer Park overcomes gaffes to sweep series
Deer Park went up against the oppressive Saturday afternoon heat and humidity, Kingwood’s relentless hitters buoyed by their home crowd and its own defensive miscues — and still swept the opposition away.
Shortstop Noah Rodarte delivered a two-run, go-ahead double in the seventh inning, Preston Lea picked up the save in 12⁄3 innings, and the Deer overcame two lost leads to win 9-7 in Game 2 to finish off the Class 6A bi-district playoff.
The Deer prevailed 4-2 in Game 1 on Friday at Deer Park.
“We overcame adversity because we didn’t play up to par defensively,” Deer Park coach Chris Rupp said. “There are some things in the game that can’t happen, and we let them happen. They scored two runs from third, on (double-steal attempts from) first and third, and then we threw the ball away and let the tying run get to third (in the sixth).
“So we’ve got to be better than that defensively.”
Now the 2017 6A state champions are into the area round for the first time since 2018. They’ll face Clear Springs or Summer Creek next week.
Kingwood, the fourthseeded team from District 21-6A, ended its season 1712.
“This is big, because the last couple of years we’ve gone out in the first round,” Rupp said. “And the way we’re swinging the bat, we can make a run.”
If, he added, they can hold up defensively and on the mound.
Deer Park appeared ready to roll to a series win after opening up a 5-0 lead.
After Dillon Mancha and Dillon Lester drew two-out walks from pitcher Ryan McClish and C.J. Salinas was hit by a pitch to juice the bases in the first, Jayden Ramos ripped a two-run single to right center — and Maverick Garcia followed by crushing a three-run homer over the tall fence in left.
But Kingwood came back with a four-run bottom of the first.
The trouble began when four of the first five Kingwood batters drew walks, including McClish with the bases loaded to force home a run.
Reliever Hayden Tronson, who ate up the next 32⁄3 innings, surrendered a two-run single to Sammy Soto as soon as he entered, and courtesy runner Jason Arney stole home while the Deer tried to catch Soto in a rundown.
“You go out with a fiverun lead, you’ve got to throw strikes, and we didn’t do that,” Rupp said.
The Mustangs grabbed the lead with two runs in the third, one on a sacrifice fly and another on a steal of third with Soto again providing the distraction. Deer Park regained the lead at 7-6 on No. 9 hitter Wyatt Woodall’s two-run single in the sixth, but Kingwood tied it in the bottom half when Caden Wellmann took third on an error and then scored.
“Every game we go into, I want them to fight until the last out, and we fought to the last out (Friday) night, and we fought to the last out (Saturday),” Kingwood coach Kelly Mead said.
“We started off down 5-0. We got two quick outs, and then the next thing we knew, there was a fivespot on the board. So you’ve got a couple options at that point. You can either lie down and let them kick you, or back yourself into a corner like we did and fight. And we fought ourselves back into it and ended up taking a lead.”
Unfortunately for the home crowd, they couldn’t hold onto it.
After Woodall’s clutch hit knotted the game, Lester singled to start the seventh-inning assault, Ramos and Garcia walked to load the bases, and Rodarte sent his game-winner down the third-base line just fair into the left field corner.
Deer Park finished with seven hits and seven walks.
Lester went 1-for-1 with three walks and two runs scored, Ramos was 2-for-3 with a walk and three runs, and Garcia went 2for-2 with two walks.
“We kept coming back at the plate offensively,” Rupp said. “Our bats really saved us.”
Kingwood mustered four hits and seven walks off four Deer Park pitchers.
Soto led the way, going 2-for-2 with two RBIs and a stolen base.
“It came down to who was going to get the opportunity in the end,” Mead said. “It was one of those games.”