CHANDLER HAMILTON WINS 6A
“We were on top all year long. We have no apologies. We played well. Tonight was our night. (Pitcher) Kole (Klecker) was on. Getting the lead early was very important. Things just went our way tonight.”
A week after spilling tears, believing their season was over, Chandler Hamilton players sprinted from the dugout with joy and celebrated the most improbable of the school’s eight state baseball championships.
The Huskies beat rival Chandler 11-1 Tuesday night in a five-inning, run-rule game for the 6A crown before one of the biggest crowds in Arizona Interscholastic Association high school history at Tempe Diablo Stadium.
It was the third time Hamilton (29-4) beat Chandler by the run rule. The Huskies won the two regular-season meetings 12-2 and 12-1.
When Prince DeBoskie ended it with a two-run single in the fifth, players sprinted out of the dugout to greet DeBoskie along first base. They celebrated hard and long, knowing how all seemed lost seven days earlier.
Last week, they slowly walked away from Mesa’s Hohokam Stadium after a 2-1 loss to Queen Creek that was their second of the 16-team, double-elimination tournament.
But less than 24 hours later, their season was restored, after the AIA ruled that Queen Creek’s seventh-inning closer, Sebastian Tomerlin, illegally pitched in the game because that Saturday he had thrown 64 pitches, exceeding the 60pitch limit, in order to pitch on two days’ rest.
Queen Creek had to forfeit the win and its season ended in shock and dismay.
“Our seniors were pretty much prepping for the next year,” DeBoskie said. “But then we got a call the next day about some misplay. And we’re at practice the next day. On the fly, we were ready for it.”
No. 1 Hamilton took advantage of the opening, beating Scottsdale Chaparral on both Friday and Saturday to advance to Tuesday’s final without having to use its No. 2 pitcher, Kole Klecker.
Then, in the final game, it all came together, that Hamilton team that was nationally ranked all season emerged and wasted no time putting the Wolves away.
The Huskies scored three runs in the first inning, two more in the second on Gavin Turley’s 15th home run of the season, two in the third, two in the fourth and two more in the fifth with DeBoskie walking it off with the two-run single.
Mike Woods Hamilton baseball coach
Senior right-hander Klecker, who was on the losing end of last week’s loss to Queen Creek, wiped away the tears then and found redemption in the title game, pitching all five innings, scattering five hits and giving up the only run Chandler scored in the fourth on a sacrifice fly.
“The whole team was down (a week ago), you know, everyone was crying,” Klecker said. “We thought our season’s over. The next day we got that glimpse of hope. We just rallied back. We knew we didn’t want to feel that again.
“That’s what we told each other and we made it happen.”
Chandler had to beat Gilbert Perry two out of three times in the semifinal round to advance to the final in search of the school’s first state baseball title since 1970.
But coach David Lopez ran out of pitchers, and after the Huskies jumped out to a 5-0 lead on starter Kyle Sleconich, Lopez inserted a freshman in the third inning. Cooper Brass doubled in another run and Hamilton’s lead was 7-0.
“Crazy week, to say the least,” said Hamilton coach Mike Woods, who led the Huskies to their eighth state title (all under him), dating to 2003. “They responded so well when they got a second wind there.
“We were on top all year long. We have no apologies. We played well. Tonight was our night. Kole was on. Getting the lead early was very important. Things just went our way tonight.”
Turley could be getting ready for the Major League Baseball draft after this.
But the dramatics of the weeks, moving from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs, made the season fulfilling.
When he doubled in the fifth to put runners on second and third with none out in the fifth, all Turley could think about it, “I didn’t want to play two more innings.”
“The adversity we dealt with, we came out better,” Turley said. “Not only baseball-wise, but character-wise, for sure.”