Cooper City Takes Down Pine Crest On Senior Night

In what could have been the last true home game of the 2023 season for the Cowboys, Cooper City (13-5) celebrated Senior Night with a 12-3 victory over the visiting Pine Crest Panthers (10-3).

Plenty of upperclassmen got their moment on Wednesday night, but it was Chase Bart who delivered the biggest blow of the evening with a no-doubt three-run home run to left field in the bottom of the second. Pine Crest starter Mason Koczwara had only given up two earned runs all year coming into the game, but Bart more than doubled that total with one swing of the bat.

“It was a curveball,” Bart said after the game. “He tried beating me with the fastball and he couldn’t do it, so I knew (the curve) was coming. I sat on it and saw it right down the middle. I just took a hack at it.”

Bart says he didn’t know the ball was gone off the bat, but he started to slow up once the umpires started twirling their fingers in the air. Once Bart crossed home plate (and was mobbed by his teammates), the Cowboys had a comfortable 5-2 lead, but there was still plenty of scoring to be done in front of a raucous home crowd.

After an up-and-down third inning for both sides, Pine Crest tacked on one run to chip away at the lead in the top of the fourth. Unfortunately, Koczwara’s command got shaky once again, which led to four-straight batters getting a free base and a run. Braeden Farris, Jorge Granada and Genson Veras hit three consecutive singles to drive in four more runs, and suddenly the lead was 10-3.

Jake Del Vecchio gave up the second and third hits in the sequence, but all 10 runs went on Koczwara’s record.

“Mason gave us what he had today,” Panthers manager Rob Conver said. “It wasn’t his best, but we tried chipping away and then they came back with the big inning. That’s baseball. Sometimes, you get the big inning, and sometimes the big inning is against you. This was our first ‘hostile’ environment, so it was a great learning experience.”

There’s little doubt from Conver that Koczwara will bounce back from the tough outing. The on-and-off command is uncharacteristic of him, and Conver trusts his ace heading into the playoff with at least one more start on the schedule to get right.

As for the learning experience approach, the Panthers just played back-to-back games that could serve as district championship simulations and received varied results. A 13-7 victory over County No. 8 University School proves Pine Crest can win it all in 3A-13, but Wednesday’s results are a reminder of what can go wrong when the team isn’t firing on all cylinders.

Pine Crest’s bats fell quiet after Koczwara scored the run in the top of the fourth off a Cooper Obst ground ball. Cooper City threw a trio of senior arms to get through the game. Left-hander Bradley Stewart opened the game in his return to action from Tommy John surgery a year ago.

He was on a 30-pitch limit, so getting through the first was all he needed to do. Bryan Borrego pitched the bulk of the game for the Cowboys. He went five strong innings, striking out six and allowing just one unearned run on two hits and four walks.

“Having (Stewart) back is a plus for us,” Borrego said. “He gave up a few runs, but that’s totally fine. I just came in and shut them down. It felt great. My changeup was there. My slider was there. My fastball was on and off, but it was a pretty good day.”

Bart closed out the game for Cooper City, and reflected on his time as a Cowboy after realizing that he may never toe that rubber in a competitive scenario again.

“It feels good to get that chance and know that people look up to you,” Bart said. “It was probably my last time pitching on this mound, so I’m just really happy that I did good.”

Senior Night is meant to shine a light on stories like Bart’s and Borrego’s, but it’s also a chance for fourth-year players such as Dominick Morales to get some more playing time than they are typically used to.

Morales is a beloved member of the Cowboys. That became apparent when the entire park erupted as he sent a line drive over the first baseman’s head in the sixth for his second-career hit. In fact, the dugout might have been even louder than the stands full of family members in attendance as coaches and players alike shared high fives and fist pumps in celebration of their teammate’s success.

“Huge day for me,” Morales said. “It felt great. I wasn’t trying to get emotional, but I love these guys so much. My last at-bat, I was hoping. I was the fourth batter, and I was just hoping Genson got a hit. John (Bishop) told me to just think about the hit I got against Fort Lauderdale. I thought about it, and I went the other way with a base hit.”

With just one or two games left on the schedule, Cooper City is beginning to shift its sights toward a district title run. The Cowboys sit at the top of 6A-15 with a 0.5-game lead over the Nova Titans for the top seed. South Broward and McArthur are just below those two and pose a serious threat to upset one of the higher seeds. The recent flooding put a bit of a pause on baseball all across Broward, but Cooper City seems to be benefitting from the time off.

“It was nice to get our feet wet yesterday and today we just exploded,” Cowboys manager Chad Rose said. “The team was in a groove. We were feeling it. There was more energy today. You could tell we were kind of back in baseball mode a little bit more.”

Of course, Senior Night provided a little extra spark for the club. Rose spoke highly of his entire senior class and knows that five-loss teams don’t come around too often. The hope is that the club can finish the job and make this a season to remember.

“We’ve said it from the beginning, this group is special,” he said. “We know that we can make a run at it. If we stay together and play Cooper City baseball, we’re going to be hard to stop. I think the team knows it, the staff knows it — this is the deepest, most talented team we’ve had in a very long time.”

For Pine Crest, putting this loss in the rear-view mirror will be key. The Panthers have proven themselves as a legitimate threat in the district and aren’t planning on regressing after a bad night on the road. Chaminade Madonna and Calvary Christian remain on the schedule before May.

“I’m very confident,” Conver said of his team’s chances heading into the postseason. “We’ve been playing really good baseball. There are going to be highs and lows, right? Not every day is going to be your day. Sometimes you’re going to get punched in the mouth, but that doesn’t change how confident I am in my guys.”

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