Katy Taylor forces showdown in 19-6A
The baseball playoffs start next week. For Katy Taylor and other teams on the postseason bubble, games like Friday’s regular-season finale might as well have counted in the postseason.
The Mustangs needed a victory to force a potential tiebreaker. Strake Jesuit needed the win to avoid that. Katy Taylor prevailed 3-2 on the road, scoring twice in the seventh inning; Matt Whelan worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the bottom half. The senior righthander struck out the side to force a winner-take-all playoff for District 19-6A’s final postseason berth.
“We put ourselves in a situation where we’ve had to win the last couple just to get ourselves in this position,” said Katy Taylor coach Matt Glover, whose team ends the regular season with consecutive wins after dropping five of seven. “We’ve been treating it like the playoffs for this whole entire week.”
Playoffs at stake
The Mustangs (17-11, 8-6) and Strake Jesuit (174-3, 8-6) will reconvene at 1 p.m. Saturday at Mayde Creek. The winner takes fourth place and opens the playoffs against 20-6A’s top seed (Kempner or Travis).
“Have to put this one behind us,” Strake Jesuit coach Raul Garcia-Rameau said. “We had our chances but their pitcher did a great job. I’ve seen that kid too many times. I’m glad he’s graduating.”
Strake Jesuit put two runners on with no outs in the seventh and eventually loaded the bases before Whelan recorded his sixth strikeout on his 110th pitch. The Crusaders also stranded runners in scoring in position in the fourth and fifth innings.
Katy Taylor did the same to start the game, loading the bases after Riley Overstreet gave up two singles and hit Chase Carlson. The lefty escaped, striking out Max Wright and Hudson Pullin before Matt Stockard flied out.
Strake Jesuit answered with a two-out rally, taking advantage of a Stockard error that would have ended the first inning. Thomas Baltz reached on the miscue and scored on Beau Bourlon’s single back up the middle.
Bourlon added a twoout RBI single in the third, which proved crucial minutes later after Stockard sent a 1-1 Overstreet fastball over the wall in left field to lead off the fourth.
Game-winning single
It stayed that way until Overstreet reached the maximum 110 pitches, exiting with two on and one out in the seventh inning. Carl Schneider entered and walked a batter to bring up Wright, who flared a 0-2 pitch to right for a two-run single to win the game.
“Obviously, we squandered some big opportunities early on,” Glover said of five runners left on in the first two innings. “But our kids battled until the end and that’s kind of what we’ve instilled in them this whole time — we’re never out of it.”
So before either team schedules a playoff series, there’s one more game.
“We had playoffs the last week and a half,” GarciaRameau said. “We’ve done this before … so we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”