Gilroy battles Mitty to 10 innings before falling 8-6 in CCS
opener
Gilroy– Four times Archbishop Mitty went ahead. Four times Gilroy came back to match the Monarchs.
But a fifth Mustang comeback was asking too much.
After 10 innings of classic postseason baseball in Wednesday’s first round game of the Central Coast Section Division I baseball playoffs, No. 7 seed Gilroy succumbed to 10th-seeded defending CCS champ Mitty 8-6 after the Monarchs mustered four hits and two runs in the final inning. In the bottom of the 10th, the host Mustangs were unable to rally one more time for a win that would save their season.
“That’s just baseball. You can do a lot of things right sometimes and still lose,” said sophomore right fielder Kevin Grove, who personally accounted for two of the Mustang comebacks with a pair of solo home runs. “Every time they got a run, we came back. We just didn’t get ahead.”
The Mustangs closed the books on a 16-11 season, during which they won eight of their last 10 games to secure a playoff berth. Archbishop Mitty (16-13) will move on to play top-seeded Bellarmine in Saturday’s quarterfinals.
Many times this season, Gilroy head coach Clint Wheeler has been frustrated by his squad not playing to its potential. But that wasn’t the case Wednesday.
“I’m just really proud of them. They battled back for 10 innings,” the coach said. “You can’t fault their effort.”
On Mitty’s end, Monarchs head coach Bill Hutton was just glad a repeat of the opening round of the 2000 CCS playoffs didn’t happen. Gilroy beat Mitty 11-0 in that game, the last time the two teams met in the postseason.
“When I saw who we were playing Saturday (at the CCS seeding meeting), I had flashbacks,” Hutton said, adding, “I think they made some unfortunate mistakes and so did we…It was two good teams in a CCS game that battled very evenly.”
Mitty broke a tie game and took a 5-4 lead on the Mustangs in the sixth inning. But Grove provided the first late-inning, game-tying run when he roped a pitch from Mitty starter Patrick McClain just fair over the fence in left field. The home run was one of three on the day for the Mustangs. In addition to Grove’s two, junior Matt Hemeon (1-for-4), who also homered in the team’s regular season finale against Sobrato, hit one out of the park in the bottom of the second inning for Gilroy’s second run.
“Both of those guys have been hitting well,” Wheeler said. “When it heats up, this field is pretty lively. It showed that today.”
After Grove’s home run, the score remained knotted at 5-5 through the seventh inning. But Mitty’s Nick Burton put the Monarchs ahead 6-5 in the top of the eighth when he ripped an offering from Gilroy pitcher Jacob Dexter for a line drive RBI double.
But again, Grove delivered. The sophomore hit his second home run over the Gilroy scoreboard in left-center field which ignited the Gilroy dugout and kept the Mustangs hopes for a win alive in the first extra inning.
The Monarchs threatened to go ahead once again in the ninth inning, loading the bases on one out. But senior Drew Andersen, who came in to relieve Dexter before the inning started, got out of the jam by striking out Dan Garo and then fielding a hard-hit comebacker from Nick Burton and making the play at first for the final two outs.
The score remained tied at six until the tenth inning when the Monarchs scored two runs off four hits to take an 8-6 lead. The Mustangs couldn’t muster the hits they needed to win in the bottom half.
Senior starter Jeremy Teschera (4 innings, 2 strikeouts), Dexter (4 innings, 2 strikeouts) and Andersen (2 innings, 1 strikeout) combined to allow 13 hits.
In addition to Grove (2-for-5), Gilroy’s offense was led by junior third baseman Michael Stevens (3-for-5, double, RBI), senior center fielder Josh Sterling (double) and senior catcher Chris Hernandez (sac fly, RBI).
Although Gilroy loses key seniors Andersen, Hernandez, Sterling and Teschera to graduation, Wheeler hopes next year’s team will build on this year’s late-season success.
“They definitely played like they could (late in the season) and it was good to see,” the coach said. “We dressed 20 kids today and only four leave. Hopefully guys can step up and fill their shoes.”
