Trinity Christian baseball humbles nation’s No. 1 team

Warriors senior Yourke throws fifive no-hit innings.

Trinity Christian is a good team. The Warriors won the Class 2A state title last year, and they ’re ranked No. 6 in the county and No. 4 in their class.

Southwest Ranches-Archbishop McCarthy is ranked No. 1 — in its class, in Florida and in the nation, according to Baseball America. The Mavericks entered Wednesday’s game at the Big 12 Challenge at Nova Southeastern in Davie having only one loss. Now they have two.

Trinity Christian (15-6) beat Archbishop McCarthy (202) 5-0 on Wednesday, shutting down the Mavericks and upsetting the high school baseball apple cart.

“I never say, in baseball, that there’s an upset because it’s evenly balanced when it’s nine against nine. It’s not a David and Goliath,” Trinity Christian coach Miguel Cuello said. “I have a pitcher; you have another one. You won state last year. We won state last year, too. We’re just a smaller school.”

Senior David Yourke got the start for Trinity Christian, and he pitched lights out, throwing fifive no-hit innings and keeping Mavericks star prospects Joe Perez (No. 57 high-school prospect in the nation; Miami commit) and Alex Toral (No. 46; Miami) out of the hit column. Yourke struck out seven batters while walking one in fifive innings.

The Warriors’ offffffffffffense got contributions from a variety of sources. After an error kept the third inning alive, Sherson Randt, Kaeber Rog and Angel Tiburcio hit doubles to score the game’s fifirst three runs.

L ernix Williams joined them in the RBI column and Randt hit another run-scoring double in the sixth, giving the Warriors their last two runs.

This win is Trinity Christian’s penultimate regular-season game — it plays Royal Palm Beach next week — and Cuello said the big victory helps give his team momentum going into the district playoffffs, where the Warriors will be the No. 1 seed.

“They liked the results yesterday,” Cuello said. “They were pumped. I actually told them, ‘Guys, we’re taking offff Thursday).’

“And they said, ‘Coach, no, no, no, no. We’re going to keep on going. We need more practice. We need to work on a few things here and there.’ ... They told me, ‘No, we’re not going to take a break. We’re going to go all the way to states, no break.’”

L o c a l f o o t b a l l p l ayers among nation’s top recruits: The top seniorto-be football players in Palm Beach Count y have more national recognition coming their way.

ESPN released its latest rankings of the top 300 2018 prospects in the nation, and two local players made the list: Palm Beach Lakes safety Gurvan Hall is ranked No. 138, and Oxbridge Academy safety C. J. Smith is ranked 200th.

ESPN has Hall, a Miami Hurr i c a ne s c ommit , a s a four-star prospect, the No. 10 safety in the country and the No. 33 player in Florida. It also ranks Smith, a Florida Gators commit, as a four-star prospect, while listing him as the No. 15 safety and No. 50 player in the state.

Hall, a fifirst- team All-Area pick last year, had 23 catches for yards and six touchdowns as a wide receiver. On defense, he had 87 tackles, including 13 for loss, fifive interceptions and four forced fumbles. He also returned two punts and one kickoff for touchdowns.

Smith, who is No. 2 on the 2018 Big Board, was a second-team selec tion, making the cut on offense as a receiver. Smith had 20 receptions for 405 yards and seven touchdowns last year and has seven interceptions for the ThunderWolves over the past two seasons.