San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Chargers survive Hornets on play at the plate
A winner-take-all playoff game between East Central and Churchill came down to a play at the plate in the bottom of the seventh inning Friday at the Hardin Athletic Complex.
The Hornets were down 4-3 and had Maddox Miesse on second base as the tying run with two outs. Hornets designated hitter Alexander Prado hit a grounder that almost got past Churchill shortstop Rilan Quinones.
Quinones threw to catcher Levi Castilleja, who tagged out Miesse as Churchill’s dugout erupted in celebration.
“I saw him running and made sure to throw low to give Levi a chance,” Quinones said. “Levi did an amazing job of tagging the guy out at home.”
It was quite the ending to a game that started out as a pitchers’ duel between East Central’s Brian Forke and Churchill’s Alex Honeyman. Forke had a no-hitter through five innings before the Chargers got their first hit to lead off the top of the sixth. Honeyman went 51⁄3 innings, giving up two runs on six hits.
“I was proud of our kids,” Churchill coach Dennis Schlueter said. “Their pitcher was pitching really good. We kept battling and battling — finally our bats came through.
Churchill got its first baserunner in the top of the first inning when right fielder Wes Campbell reached on a one-out error by East Central first baseman Everardo Gloria. But Campbell never moved from first base as the next two Chargers were retired to end the inning.
The Chargers got their second baserunner in the top of the third when Josh Sanchez drew a twoout walk, but Campbell grounded out to end the inning.
East Central opened the scoring with a run in the bottom of the third inning. The Hornets got six men on base in the inning on two hits and a Churchill error but had to settle for one run scored by Jonathan Martinez on a Michael Barrera single.
“We struggled early hitting the ball,” East Central coach Eric Vasquez said. “We waited down to the very end to try and put things together. We’re an aggressive team, and sometimes it comes down to one play that doesn’t go your way.”
Churchill finally solved the riddle of Forke in the top of the sixth inning. Charger designated hitter Dom Tellis broke up the nohitter with a leadoff single that bounced off Forke’s glov, and he scored the Chargers’ first run on a two-run double by Ben Colton that also scored Campbell.
By the time Forke got through the inning, all nine Chargers hitters had come to the plate, and Churchill led 4-1.
East Central got their second run in the bottom of the sixth inning. Galan reached with a oneout walk, then scored on Jonathan Ovalle’s single. Gloria tried to make it a one-run game when he bolted home on a wild pitch, but he was tagged out by Churchill reliever Brody Ticer.
The Hornets got their third run across in the bottom of the seventh when Jacob Ovalle led off with a double and scored on a Galan single, but Quinones and Castilleja made sure they couldn’t get the tying run home.
Before Friday night, Churchill had not won a playoff game since May 26, 2018, when they beat Edinburg Vela 9-2 to complete a sweep in the regional semifinals.
The Chargers will face Austin Lake Travis, which beat Cedar Park Vista Ridge 4-2 on Friday night, in the second round.
East Central finished the season 20-8-2.