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Miami Herald

Doral baseball tops St. Thomas, pushes Region 4-6A final series back to ‘The Cage'

Because of its small match-box style dimensions, the Doral Academy baseball team refers to its home field as 'The 'Birdcage.' And the Firebirds have been historically very tough to beat there. Thus, following a tough loss on Wednesday night in the first game of a best-of-3 series in the Region 4-6A final, their goal when they traveled for a second consecutive night to Fort Lauderdale to take on St. Thomas Aquinas was to do whatever it took to find a way to push the series there. Thanks to a strong pitching performance from Aaron Elissalt, a big two-run third inning blast over the left field fence by Dylan Prince, and two brilliantly executed double plays at crucial moments, that's exactly what happened as the Firebirds hung on to top Aquinas 5-3. St. Thomas will now travel to Doral Academy on Saturday at 1 p.m. with the winner advancing to the state final four at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers. 'We've got'em back in 'the cage' on Saturday and that was our goal coming into tonight,' Prince said. 'We really play well at home in front of our fans and wanted to get this thing back to our place.' Prince's two-run shot completed a five-run rally in the top of the third that staked Elissalt to a big 5-0 lead. But one that he almost lost in the last of the fourth. That's when the Raiders came back around to face him for the second time in the lineup and really hit him hard. After Elissalt hit Brady Buxbaum to open the inning, Josh Jennings followed with a deep shot off the fence in left center to put runners on second and third. Andrew Alvarez then stepped up and launched a towering blast over the high fence in dead center field for a three-run homer and suddenly Elissalt's five-run lead was down to two. It appeared the lead would be cut to one in the next inning when Jonathan Lopez launched another towering high shot to dead center. But in a bizarre fortunate twist for the Firebirds, the ball hit the top of the fence and dropped straight down into the glove of center fielder George Pardo who quickly fired to second, holding Lopez to perhaps the longest single in St. Thomas history. The next Aquinas batter, Zack Malvasio, then hit a laser right at third baseman Gabriel Milano who cooly fielded it and fired to second and then to first for an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play. One inning later, the Raiders had runners on first and second with one out when Jayden Doverspike hit a shot in between third and short. Shortstop Kobe Carrion not only got to the ball but quickly fired to second and then to first for another brilliant turntable inning-ending double play. Closing in on his max pitch count, Elissalt managed to finish the game with a quick three-up, three down last of the seventh to secure the win for his team. 'They've got some big bats and were really hitting it hard but I just wanted to attack every hitter I faced, make them hit the ball and then leave it up to my defense and you saw what happened out there,' Elissalt said. 'Those two double plays were huge. Now we've got them back at our place on Saturday in front of our fans and on our field where we feel like we're tough to beat.' Before Prince came to the plate in the third, Doral had already scored three runs thanks to base hits by Milano and Caleb Hernandez with a walk to Jadyn Nunez sandwiched in between. Leonard Hernandez then stepped up and cleared the bases with a double off the fence in left center setting the stage for Prince's big two-run blast. 'A great job tonight to come in here and get this thing done on their field,' Doral coach Ralph Suarez said. 'Now we've got it back at our place on Saturday and we'll see what we can do.'