Montalvo Pitches Coral Springs To JV Fall Classic Championship

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The Coral Springs Colts JV team set the tone on Wednesday for what would eventually become a Colts sweep of the HSBN/Perfect Recruits Fall Classic and JV Fall Classic tournament championship games. Michael Montalvo was the hero in the matinee, pitching the Colts to a 3-0 victory over rival Douglas.

“Michael was just tremendous today,” Colts head coach Harvey Cohen said. “He didn’t find out until last night (Tuesday) that he was pitching today. He came through big. That was a great team we played today, and he shut them down. He’s going to be the real deal if he keeps working hard.”

Montalvo started the game on the mound and went five innings for the Colts, giving up only an infield single to TJ Vazquez on the day. Montalvo finished his outing with eight strikeouts and no earned runs allowed. Although he missed bats for most of the day, the Colts ace deflected the praise to his teammates.

“The game plan was just to hit my spots and let my infield do the rest of the work, and they did,” Montalvo said. “Even though we won the tournament, we have to still work hard moving forward, and we can’t take anything lightly heading into the spring.”

Coral Springs played solid defense throughout the final two rounds of the tournament. After emerging from group play as the top seed from their bracket, the Colts threw two shutouts in their two-out-of-three match-up with Pompano and completed the shutout trifecta Wednesday in the title game win over Douglas.

Offensively, Montalvo and tournament MVP Ryan Denardo were in the middle of the scoring for the Colts. The three and four hitters in the Colts lineup both singled in the third. The designated runners for the pitcher and catcher both came around to score on singles by Dameon Concepcion and Matt Messina. Denardo finished the tournament 12-for-19 with five doubles and 13 RBI.

“We’ve been working hard. putting in time in the cages, and today was a team win,” Denardo said. As for his tournament MVP performance, Denardo credits the work in the cages and perseverance. “Throughout the season, I wasn’t hitting at all. This tournament, I’ve been hitting in the cages for three weeks straight, and I finally just got my swing back.”

Douglas played well throughout the JV Fall Classic but ran into a pitcher on Wednesday that head coach Peter Kowal felt was on top of his game.

‘He (Montalvo) pitched a great game,” Kowal said. “We tried to do a bunch of different things, bunted a few times, and nothing worked, so you’ve got to give him credit. They made the plays today, and I have to take my hat off to them for the way they played.”

Although Coral Springs won the game, Kowal understands that this tournament was a good teaching tool for Douglas’ young players.

“They did a wonderful job,” Kowal said of his team’s performance throughout the Fall Classic. “Today we ran into a hot pitcher, and we couldn’t get anything going. For many of these kids, it’s their first time in a pressure situation, and I thought they handled it well. They kept fighting, and they played well. We are trying to build character for their four years at Douglas, and tournaments like this help us accomplish that goal.”

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