Calvary Christian Comes Back In Thriller With Westminster
Calvary’s George De La Fe leaps in celebration after scoring in the fifth.
Saturday night’s HSBN Broward Game of the Week provided the many fans in attendance with one of the most thrilling games of the season. Playing on the immaculate field at Westminster Sports Complex, visiting Calvary Christian prevailed 7-5 over Westminster Academy in a seesaw district contest packed full of action, enthusiasm and heart. Adding to the drama was the fact that Calvary manager Alan Kunkel previously served as an assistant under Westminster manager Nick James.
“I knew it was going to be hard to come back here, especially with me being here three years as Nick’s assistant,” Kunkel said. “I have a great relationship with the kids here and it’s a tough place to play. We really didn’t deserve to win and early on we just didn’t make plays. But the kids stuck together and you are always happy with that in a district game like this. This rivalry has been going on since Calvary opened and both teams could have won this game. We ended up closing the door and didn’t give them an opportunity to get back into the game.”
The Eagles (8-4) scored three unearned runs in the top of the fifth for the third and final lead change of the night. Brett Lawson and George De La Fe were both hit by pitches and scored on a throwing error that put Tommy Orr on third base. Relief pitcher Luis Ezra then sent a liner up the middle for the go-ahead run, putting himself as the pitcher of the record for the eventual victory.
Two innings later Ezra added a valuable insurance run on a sac-fly RBI that again plated Orr for the two-run lead. Orr had a leadoff single to shallow center, stole second and advanced to third thanks to a sacrifice bunt from Ben Rozenblum.
“It felt really good with the whole team contributing and staying positive even though we faced a lot of adversity during the game,” Ezra said. “The fans were going crazy and it was a high-energy game, and it was cool how our team stayed calm and positive with one another and came through with the win.”
The victory, coupled with Chaminade-Madonna’s win over SLAM Academy earlier in the day, put Calvary in great position in 4A-7. The Eagles are now 4-1 in the district and right on the heels of SLAM for the top spot.
“It definitely makes us feel good, but we’re just going to patch up some things we need to work on from tonight’s game and just keep pushing forward,” said Brett Lawson.
By no means was it an easy victory, as both sides brought energy and enthusiasm to every action made. With both offenses slugging away for big hits the outcome hung in the balance to the very end.
Westminster’s Alec Villanueva makes a leaping catch in the third.
“We look forward to get a Game of the Week every year, and to do it against a fellow Christian rival-school like Calvary I was more excited about the atmosphere and the environment itself,” Nick James said. “We were constantly talking to the guys asking, ‘Are you having fun? Isn’t this great?’. It didn’t turn out how we wanted it to but I felt we played well. We are a young ball club and being in environments like this will only make us better. The energy was great, the atmosphere was awesome and we just made too many mistakes and couldn’t get the job done at the end. But we’ll come out better for us, that’s for sure.”
Although the bats dictated much of the results, it was the pitching and defense that made the final difference. Calvary reliever Brett Lawson tossed three scoreless frames to close it out and earn the save. He was aided by a great sliding grab and putout from second baseman Ben Rozenblum to record the second out in the bottom of the seventh to keep all the momentum on Calvary’s side.
Lawson struck out six, including the final batter to leave Alec Villanueva stranded at first after he singled for the only base runner against the side-arm closer. Most impressive was the fact that Lawson struck out the side on just nine pitches in the sixth.
“To me it’s just three more strikeouts,” Lawson said of the feat. “If I would have struck them out on 15 pitches instead of nine, all that matters is that I got my team back in the dugout.”
With both dugouts boisterous with excitement from the onset, early on it was tough for either side to get the opposing offense off the field. The Eagles struck first as Rozenblum singled through the left side and Max Guzman connected for his county-leading sixth home run on a shot deep to center field for a 2-0 lead.
Both sides joined together for a postgame prayer to end the night.
The Lions (7-5, 3-4) answered right back in the bottom half of the first. Cory Acton walked, Zach Warenius followed with a long single to left and Thomas Messer singled to load the bases. Zach Goberville was then hit by a pitch to plate Acton.
Victor Pimental led off the second with a double and gave way to courtesy-runner Peter Carciopollo, who scored thanks to an RBI groundout from De La Fe. But Westminster responded to tie it up as Villanueva reached on an error, Christian Sosa doubled and Acton doubled to deep right field to plate both runners.
Acton got things going again to give Westminster the lead in the fourth, earning a one-out single and advancing to third when Warenius followed with his second hit of the night. Ramon Ripoll executed a suicide-squeeze bunt to push Acton home, and courtesy-runner Cody Hatch later scored on an error that gave the host Lions a 5-3 advantage.
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