St. Brendan baseball moves within one series victory from state final four
Two days after letting an opportunity slip away, the St. Brendan baseball team was not about to let it happen again.
The Sabres, who dropped a one-run, extra-inning heartbreaker on their home field in Game two of a Region 4-3A best-of-3 semifinal series with Miami Killian, traveled to the Cougars' home field Thursday afternoon.
St. Brendan took maximum advantage of a struggling Killian pitching staff that went through five pitchers and doled out a total of 12 walks to cruise to an easy 9-3 victory in Game 3.
The Sabres (19-13) advance to the regional final for only the third time in program history and first time since 2013. The No. 6 seed in the region, St. Brendan will travel to take on top-seeded Miami Springs for a best-of-3 series beginning Monday at 3:30 p.m. in hopes of securing their first trip to the state final four since they won the state title in 1983.
'We've been grinding these games out throughout the playoffs and today was more of the same,' St. Brendan coach Jorge Robles said. 'We just get out there and go seven innings as hard as we can, take it pitch by pitch and today we found a way to grinding things out again.'
The Sabres batted around and scored a pair of runs in the second without recording a single hit as Killian starter Alex Fonseca issued five walks and didn't make it out of the inning.
By the time senior catcher Rafael Rizo stepped up to the plate in the top of the fourth, the Sabres led 4-1, (thanks to three more walks, a hit batsmen and a Killian error) and still didn't have a hit yet. That changed when Rizo, with two on and two outs, rocketed a 3-2 pitch into the left field corner for a two-RBI standup double.
'I was just looking for my pitch, something belt high and not chase something down low and he gave it to me,stayed to my approach, got good barrel on it and away it went,' said Rizo of his big hit. 'Tuesday was a really rough game for us, probably our worse game of the playoffs because we had some big errors late in the game that cost us so we were a little down. But there was no time to mope around and sulk.
'We had to pull our heads together quickly and not dwell on that and we did that out there today.'
It was a choppy day for St. Brendan starter Gianncarlo Guzman but, like his team, he managed to muddle his way through five-plus innings of work while giving up just one run despite walking five and yielding five hits.
'He wasn't perfect out there but made the right pitches at the right time,' said Robles of Guzman. 'They (Killian) were looking for fast balls all day long but his best pitch is the slider and that's what got him through.'
After he recorded the first out of the sixth inning, Guzman maxed out on his pitch count and Robles went to his bullpen. Trailing 7-1, the Cougars (15-15) seized the opportunity by wrapping out three hits, scoring a run and still had the bases loaded with only one out and the top of the order coming up.
But Matthew Garcia then entered and got Kendry Blanco to foul out to third base and Lucas Arcaute to line out to center to end the inning and the threat.
'We're excited to be moving on and looking forward to taking on a great team in Miami Springs,' Robles said. 'They've had a great season so far know that it will be a challenge for us. We're just going to go in there, put nine guys out on the field and play as hard as we can play.'
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