If the Park University Gilbert baseball team can continue to get starting pitching as they did in this series against Antelope Valley, the top hitting team in the Cal Pac, the Buccaneers just sent chills through the rest of the league. A strong start from Luke Richards and a dominant performance from Aaron de Groot ended in a spit between the two teams. Antelope Valley won the first game of the twin bill 3-2 in 10 innings and the Buccaneers won the nightcap 8-6.
With the split, the Buccaneers are now 11-20 overall and 8-7 in the Cal Pac. The Pioneers are 23-9, 11-4 in conference.
Game 1, Antelope Valley 3, Park Gilbert 2 (10 Innings)
Game one was a pitcher's duel between Bucs starter Richards and Antelope Valley hurler Calvin Turchin. The Bucs jumped on top in the first with an unearned run as Aaron Stinnett set the Bucs hitting streak record at 13 games with a single to start the game to pass Diego Bejarano. After advancing on a passed ball, Stinnett moved to third on a ground out by his brother Alex, then scored on a wild pitch to give the Bucs a 1-0 lead.
Richards continued what had started a day earlier by keeping the potent Pioneer bats in check. He did not allow a run through the first five innings before three consecutive hits to start the sixth plated the Pioneers first run of the series and tied the game at 1-1.
UAV took the lead in the seventh off of reliever Frank Racioopo on a sacrifice fly by Tyler Pruitt. Then the Bucs answered right back in the bottom half of the seventh as Aaron Lizarraga and Travis Moore started the inning with back to back singles. Cade Maestas pinch ran for Lizarraga and advanced to third on a Joel Adamson fly out. Maestas brought in the tying run on a single by Stinnett.
Both teams put their fates in the hands of their bullpens as UAV brought in their hard throwing right-hander Ryan Isler and the Bucs relied on the right arms of Racioppo and Aaron Gutierrez
After a scoreless eight, Gutierrez gave the Buccaneers a chance with a scoreless top half of the ninth. In the bottom half of the ninth the Buccaneers almost walked it off literally. After Maestas and Moore struck out to start the inning, Isler lost his command. He walked Adamson, then after a wild pitch moved him to second and the count was 3-0 to Aaron Stinnett, they intentionally walked him. He then proceeded to hit Austin Chouinard to load the bases. UAV made a pitching change to pit left handed reliever Colby Ring against Alex Stinnett. Ring took the count to 3-1 and all three balls were nowhere near the strike zone. The decision at this point, do you take a 3-1 pitch and make Ring throw two strikes or do you take a hack at a grooved 3-1 pitch. Stinnett took the latter decision and while he hit it hard, he hit it right at the second baseman and the Pioneers escaped the inning and the game unscathed.
In the top of the 10th, UAV managed to do something no other team had done all year; score an earned run off of Gutierrez. The pioneers worked a single in-between the first two outs in the inning, Then Gutierrez missed his spot and hit a batter to move the tying run into scoring position. One batter and a single later, the Pioneers had taken the lead 3-2.
The Bucs almost tied the game in the bottom of the 10th in a fantastic finish. With two outs, pinch hitter Joey Martinez walked. Speedster Chris Amador ran for Martinez. Lizarraga then lifted a single to right. The speedy Amador went first to third, then when the throw from the right fielder got past the third baseman, Amador tried to score. Ring doing a good job of backing up was able to scoop up the ball and fire it home to get Amador and end the game.
Gutierrez (0-2) takes the loss, Ring gets the win for UAV.
The Buccaneers only managed six hits total in the game, two came off the bat of Aaron Stinnett and two from Lizarraga. The rest of the Bucs lineup was held silent with two hits among the other seven bats. Overall the Bucs struck out 14 times.
Game 2 – Park Gilbert 8, Antelope Valley 6.
After jumping out to an 8-0 lead, the Bucs had to hold on for dear life just to walk away with an 8-6 triumph over the Pioneers in the second game of the Saturday afternoon twin bill.
The initial story of the game was the dominance of de Groot over the UAV hitters. de Groot threw seven scoreless innings allowing only three hits to a team coming into the day hitting .333 and recording 11 strikeouts with no walks. All three hits came in separate innings and the Pioneers never really had a good scoring opportunity against de Groot.
Meanwhile the Buc bats which were silent for the most part in game one, woke up to put four runs on the board in the first two innings. A double steal, including a steal of home by Aaron Stinnett plated the first run, followed by an RBI single took care of the scoring in the first. Then three consecutive singles, followed by back-to-back RBI ground outs plated the next two runs in the second.
The Bucs were held scoreless for three innings until they managed to get two more runs in the sixth. Joey Martinez led off the inning with a single, then Maestas reached via an error by the Pioneer catcher on a sacrifice bunt. Then with one out, Martinez and Maestas pulled a double steal, swiping second and third. Aaron Stinnett continued his hot hitting driving a double to left field to score the fifth and sixth runs of the game.
Park Gilbert added single runs in the seventh and eighth to build the lead to 8-0, which felt as though that should be a comfortable lead. The Pioneers made things interesting in the ninth.
Luke Turner relieved de Groot in the eight and he managed to throw a scoreless eighth. But the ninth was a nightmare for the right hander from Australia. The inning started with a single and a walk, followed by an error by Julian Garcia Schroeder which helped to load the bases. After a single brought in UAV's first two runs of the game, head coach Kelly Stinnett went back to his pen and brought in Lizarraga to hopefully put a finger in the dike.
But things got worse before they got better. A walk and a single plated two more and the lead had been sliced in half and there still had not been and out recorded. After a hit by pitch, Lizarraga got the first out of the inning, a ground out which allowed run number five to come across. Then a huge defensive play was made to get the second out in the inning. Noah Blythe hit a ball in the hole between first and second, both Logan Livingston and Chouinard went for the ball. With Chouinard not being able to get to it, Livingston had to make a throw to Lizarraga who was running over to cover first. Not an easy play in the first inning of a game, but when the game is on the line, the difficulty level ramps up exponentially. But the duo executed the play to get the second out in the inning while the sixth run crossed the plate. Finally, with two outs, Lizarraga got a ground out to short to end the game and give the Buccaneers a much needed series win over the best team in the conference by record.
de Groot upped his record to 2-0 with the win. Meanwhile Pioneer started Shaun Atamanchu took the loss to drop to 1-2.
At the plate, the Buccaneers pounded out 13 hits, with Aaron Stinnett going 3-3 with two RBI, Amador picked up two knocks and Joey Martinez had three hits and had a fourth one stolen on a sliding grab by the Pioneers.
Up next for the Buccaneers are four games against Simpson. Three conference contests and a single non-conference game. The Bucs and Redhawks will play two double headers next Friday and Saturday with both days starting at 11 a.m.
