American Heritage Edges Pompano Beach 2-1

A win’s a win, but it’s going to be a long season for American Heritage if it has to keep winning the way it did Friday night.

Facing a rare shutout loss — at home no less — and managing just one hit going into the sixth inning, the Patriots found a way to overcome a 1-0 deficit and hold on to win 2-1 against Pompano Beach is a District 5A-16 game.

Heritage opened the sixth with a walk by Zach Collins. Danny Zardon followed with a base hit before Mike Deeb reached on a fielder’s choice in which Zardon was forced out at second. Collin’s pinch-runner, star running back on the football team Sony Michel, got to third on the play. A runner’s interference call forced Deeb to be called out at first base. CJ Chatham was next up to bat.

“Before that at-bat, there was a bunch of controversy and I thought we were going to be out only at second base,” Chatham said. “And when they took [Deeb] off first, I had the same mindset the whole time. I just wanted to hit. I don’t care what happens, I’m getting this kid in. I’ve always been a pressure guy. I’m getting this kid in no matter what. They threw me a perfect fastball, and I just hit it hard.”

Chatham roped a shot down the third-base line for a double to bring in Michel for the tying run.

Magglio Ordonez came up next and hit a grounder that was fielded by the third baseman but overthrown to first base, allowing Chatham to race home for the winning run.

The Golden Tornadoes (3-2, 2-1 district) took a 1-0 lead in the second as Shaw Pinnell singled and scored on Kelsey Lunde’s sacrifice fly.

Heritage (4-1) had chances to score. In the third with runners at second and third with two outs, a pop-up ended the threat. In the fifth, Brandon Diaz reached on a fielder’s choice and stole second and third, but was left stranded when Dallas Perez struck out looking.

The loss leaves Heritage with a lot of work to do on its offensive approaches, Manager Bruce Aven said.

“We’re a good team and we’ve got good players. They work hard, but they’re not having quality at-bats,” Aven said. “That’s just all it comes down to. You can’t just go up there and stand in the box and let fastballs go by and swing at balls in the dirt and put yourself in unfavorable positions. If you’re in a favorable position, and you’re 2-0, 3-1, 0-0, then you have to have quality at-bats. You have to have quality swings. And we’re not doing it. We’re fouling those pitches off, we’re letting those pitches go. We work ourselves to power counts and counts that favor us, then all of a sudden, our focus leaves or we start chasing balls out of the zone, we let pitches go straight by, and this has been going on for pretty much every game we’ve had so far. And we’re a better-hitting team than this. That’s just all it comes down to.”

Pitching ruled the game Friday as Heritage’s Louis Back staged a pitcher’s duel with Pompano’s Andrew Perez. Beck finished with nine strikeouts.

“Our pitching, that was money,” Chatham said. “Beck coming out and doing a great job. That was great. ”

Pompano Manager Ryan Combs was likewise happy with Perez’s pitching.

“I thought Andrew Perez pitched his butt off. He came in as a junior, and I expect a lot out of him. He’ll be our ace next year,” Combs said. “But right now, he came out and he dealt. And he did a good job. Christian, the catcher, his brother, it’s nice, it’s almost like they have one brain on the mound. You have the catcher and the pitcher thinking so much alike. And they did a good job. He pitched, and he did a good job. His velocity was pretty good, and he pitched, he just pitched. That’s a good-hitting team. You’ve got three guys who are going D-I. And he came out and he pitched very well. I’m proud.”

Aven said whether the team improves on its mistakes will make a difference in its ability to win.

“Pitching’s doing outstanding and defense has been outstanding, but we’re an offensive hitting team right now. We’re a team that should be scoring a lot of runs, and we’re not giving ourselves an opportunity to do that. If you keep doing this, you won’t win. And we’re here to win. We’re not here to just show up and play and have a good time. That’s not what you expect to do here. You’re expected to win. Tonight was a great comeback, but this is too many things that went wrong in our game for us to be a good team.”

Combs said the win was within his team’s grasp.

“They’re a much different team [than last year]. We’re a much different team. They lost a lot of guys. We lost a lot of guys. We had 16 seniors last year, so we have these sophomore who are working their way and trying to figure out the whole varsity thing. I tell them all the time ‘Every time you walk on the field, you’re the best team on the field.’ And I think for five innings, we were. And we just kind of let it get away there at the end. Kind of like last year in the regional game, we had them. We were out in front. You have to play a perfect game against them.”

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