American Heritage Staves Off Upset To Edge Suncoast In Class 5A

American Heritage was reminded Wednesday night why no team can be overlooked when it comes to baseball, much less playoff baseball.

The Patriots needed to rally in the sixth inning to stave off an upset by a determined Suncoast team to win 3-2 in a Class 5A regional quarterfinal in one of two near upsets in the county — Nova edged Northeast 1-0 in the other.

Gabby Aurrecoechea drove in Brandon Diaz for the winning run in the sixth to put American Heritage (21-4) in a regional semifinal Tuesday at home against Pompano Beach in a rematch of the District 16-5A championship that Heritage won 7-0 Friday. The Golden Tornadoes (12-10-1) defeated Jensen Beach 6-2 to advance.

Heritage coach Bruce Aven took a mature approach when asked whether his team was surprised by Suncoast (8-18), which was playing in its first regional quarterfinal since 2008 and trying for its first regional semifinal appearance.

“I don’t think we were surprised,” Aven said. “In the playoffs, it’s not always the better team or the more experienced team. It’s the team that plays better. And their guy did an excellent job tonight pitching out of situations. You go back and look at the game, I think we had the bases loaded four out of six innings. It’s bases loaded, bases loaded, bases loaded. In favorable positions, we just didn’t do the job when we were supposed to.”

On the other hand, Esteban Puerta, who brought in the tying run, said he did think his team was a bit surprised by Suncoast and impressed with its tenacity.

“You can never underestimate a team ever,” Puerta said. “In the game of baseball, it’s whoever plays best, and they played like they wanted to win. Our at-bats were awful tonight, every single one of them. They came ready to play. They wanted to win this game, and their intensity was there.”

Puerta said the game was a reality check.

“As a senior, basically this almost was our last night,” Puerta said. “And it was a real wake-up call that this game could be over any second now.”

Heritage starter Shaun Anderson and Suncoast starter Jack Granger were locked in a pitchers’ duel through the first four innings, with Heritage holding onto a slim, 1-0 lead. In the bottom of the third, Brandon Diaz scored on Zack Collins’ RBI single to break the scoreless tie.

Suncoast scored two in the fifth to take the lead. Carson Morris led off with a walk and advanced to third on an error that allowed Calvin Paige to get on base and make it to second. Shane Quo’s RBI groundout brought in Morris, and Paige scored on Greg Poore’s RBI single.

Heritage tied it up in the bottom of the fifth. After Aurrecoechea flied out to start the inning, Brandon Lopez singled and came home on Puerta’s fielder’s choice.

Diaz scored his second run of the game in the sixth on Aurrecoechea’s single to put Heritage up 3-2.

Heritage had several opportunities to score throughout the game, loading the bases four times. The Chargers turned double plays twice to get out of a couple of those jams, and their pitchers got them out of the others.

Aven noted the performance of Granger and how he stymied the Patriots.

“He did a good job of getting ahead with his curve ball, I will say that,” Aven said. “He probably got that curve ball over probably 80 percent of the time. He had great command over his curve ball. He was able to get ahead in the count. In the same situation, we have a good team and we have hitters that should have had better at-bats in situations tonight. Not that we should have run away with this, but should have easily tacked on a run or a run there as we went along, and their guy did a great job of mixing up his pitches and keeping our hitters off balance.”

After the game, Suncoast coach B.J. Gilbert had nothing but praise for the effort his team turned in against one of the top teams in the state.

“It was the best outing that I’ve ever seen my kids give me,” Gilbert said. “I told the guys, I said listen ‘You leave it all out on the field. Don’t hold anything back.’ They’re finally taking on my personality, getting out there and getting it done, no fear, whatever the case may be.”

Gilbert said the game surprised people about Suncoast’s ability and sent a message the Chargers can’t be taken lightly.

“My pitcher Jack Granger came out and did a heck of a job,” Gilbert said. “Then D.C. came in, Greg Poore with a timely hit to go for the lead, 2-1 over American Heritage. No one expected us to play a close game like this against this team. It says a lot about us and that we’re getting better and better every year and that we will be back. We will be back.”

“This is the future of Suncoast. We’re going to continue. We’re going to grow from this right here. We’re going to take the same attitude that we had in this game right here and we’re going to roll this over into next year. That’s what we’re going to do. And if we do that here or down in Palm Beach, we’ll be very, very good and very, very competitive and when we come back next year in regionals, we won’t be losing in the first round. We’ll be winning.”

While Suncoast regroups and puts its thoughts ahead to next year, Puerta said there are a few mental adjustments his team can make to be ready for Tuesday’s game against Pompano when Heritage will be trying for its first state semifinal appearance since 2009.

“We just have to work on our approach and relaxing up there,” he said. “Maybe we’re trying to do too much.”

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