McCarthy Comes Back To Edge American Heritage, 3-2

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It was a tough situation for the Archbishop McCarthy baseball team to come into on Saturday evening. After Friday’s district showdown at American Heritage was suspended due to rain with the host Patriots leading 2-0 in the second, the two squads returned to the field Saturday for the conclusion. The Mavericks battled back and found a way to win, scoring three runs in the top of the sixth to pull out a 3-2 victory.

The Mavericks won their thirteenth straight to start the season, remaining unbeaten on the year while also running their record to a perfect 9-0 in 5A-16. Winning is nothing new to the McCarthy program that has been hugely successful for the last several years, but it comes as a great reward to continue that trend with a very young and new roster this year.

“We’re very, very proud of the boys tonight,” Mavericks Manager Rich Bielski said. “As I said and everybody knows, we’re a very young team. But they played with such composure tonight, and such confidence. We knew this was going to be a five-inning game tonight and we were really spotting the team two runs, so to come back like that is really huge. It says a lot about the younger kids we have and how they have just jumped in and really matured this first half of the season.”

While the offense did its part to get the victory, the pitching staff gave McCarthy every opportunity for a comeback by keeping the Patriots in check on Saturday. Heritage (9-4, 7-3) jumped ahead on Friday thanks to a two-run home run from David Villar that also drove in Alfie Soto in the bottom of the first. But the Patriots managed just one hit on Saturday.

McCarthy senior Brian Van Belle replaced starter Christian Demby, as both sides were forced to change pitchers following the rainout. The right-handed Van Belle stepped up to deliver his best performance of the season, facing just three batters over the minimum after he took the mound to resume play with two outs in the bottom of the second. The result was even more rewarding for the veteran hurler, after he struggled mightily in an earlier outing against the Patriots this year.

“Last time I came out here I didn’t really have my stuff, and this time I worked on throwing all of my pitches for strikes,” Van Belle said. “My coaches always say that if you throw strikes good things will happen, so that’s what I did. The defense backed me up and so did my offense.”

Patriots’ second baseman Chase Reyes managed a two-out single in the fifth, and Joe Perez drew a two-out walk in the sixth. But that was all the Heritage offense was able to muster against the gritty Van Belle.

“They found a way to lose,” Heritage Manager Bruce Aven said. “We came out here today and we did not make an adjustment hitting-wise. We kept telling them what they had to do as hitters, what they had to look for, and their approach. We understood what they were trying to do with their pitching; they were trying to get us out in front and get us with the curveball. We were pitching the same way.”

Both sides used a different approach from the mound. Pitchers threw curveballs early in the count and tried to get batters to chase and expand the zone, and then they put the fastball outside to not give them anything good to hit. Aven was frustrated by the results because he knew his batters kept getting themselves out.

“He threw a great ball game, he did, and we give him credit,” Aven said. “But we didn’t give ourselves a chance, and if you don’t give yourself a chance by putting the ball in play you can’t do anything. I had too many guys that walked back with two strikes on them, too many guys ahead in the count that were swinging at curveballs and missing by a foot-and-a-half. That means you don’t have an approach up there.”

In the sixth, the Mavericks capitalized to manufacture just enough offense to pull ahead. Alex Carballo smoked the first pitch he saw to start the inning deep to left field, where it clanged off the top of the fence and stayed in play as he reached second base with a double. Jake Anchia put runners on the corners by poking a single up the middle, and then the catcher gave way to courtesy-runner AJ Hendricks. Carballo scored on a wild pitch to put McCarthy on the board.

Christian Demby kept things going when he rolled an infield grounder and reached on the fielder’s choice after Hendricks beat the throw and tag to third base. Dylan Bautista followed with a fly ball deep to right field for a sac-fly RBI that plated Hendricks to even things up. After Adan Fernandez walked to push Demby into scoring position, Fred Matos slapped a single into right field to bring Demby around for the deciding run.

Van Belle tossed a scoreless sixth inning, before turning things over to Andrew Federman for a 1-2-3 seventh inning. Federman picked up the save, while preserving the big victory for his team and Van Belle.

“Brian Van Belle has worked so hard, and he had three pitches going tonight,” Bielski said. “He was locating his fastball, and his curveball and changeup were landing for strikes. He was keeping ball down and we’ve very proud of him. He’s been waiting for an opportunity like this for quite a while, and tonight he got his chance and he really went out there and dominated.”

While it was a memorable night for Van Belle and the Mavericks, Aven was disappointed to see his team take a step backwards from the improvement it has shown over the past three weeks. Heritage had its four-game winning streak snapped, and has lost both meetings with its district rivals by one run each. Since the two clubs entered the same district together last season, McCarthy has won all four meetings in the series.

Aven and the Patriot coaches can accept that losses happen in baseball. What left them so frustrated afterwards were the numerous mistakes their players made throughout the contest. There were missed signs on the bases, pitchers throwing the wrong pitches that were called, poor decisions and lack of execution on some key defensive plays. Most of all Aven was disappointed that the batters did not adjust to the combination of the pitching and the wind blowing across to right field, as the batters needed to let the ball get deep into the zone so they could try and go up the middle or to right field with it.

“These are little things that happen during the game that people don’t see, but this is the reason we lost the game tonight,” Aven said. “Tonight we came out and played bad baseball. We pitched well; our pitchers came out and threw well and I am proud of them. But defensively we made some mistakes too. When these things happen in a one-run ball game; that is why we lost. They did their part to win, but we did our part to lose.”

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