Alvarez Hits Two Grand Slams, St. Thomas Aquinas Rolls

Andrew Alvarez belted a pair of grand slam home runs and St. Thomas Aquinas scored in every inning to pile up a 16-4 win at home on Monday over Cooper City in a game shortened to five innings by the run-rule.

Alvarez powered his first grand slam over the center field fence in the third inning to extend the Raiders’ lead to 12-4, scoring Jaden Doverspike, Christian Hamilton and Nico Sabatino in front of him.

An inning later, Alvarez went yard again, another grand slam over the center field fence that plated Brad Sigler, Jr., Ian Faulkner and Doverspike. In addition to driving in eight runs, Alvarez also scored four times.

Zachary Malvasio added a pair of hits and drove in two runs while Cole Lasher contributed with a pair of RBIs for the Raiders, who improved to 6-1 overall this season and 6-0 at home this year.

“We were really good offensively,” said St. Thomas Aquinas manager Joey Wardlow. “We need to maintain a good approach on offense to hitting line drives. We hit line drives; good things happen.”

Cooper City grabbed the early 1-0 lead thanks to Genson Veras, who smacked a couple of home runs and accounted for all four of the Cowboys’ runs. His first-inning homer gave the Cowboys their only edge in the game. Veras delivered a three-run blast in the third inning, scoring Ryan Pagan and Braeden Farris.

Veras accounted for three of Cooper City’s five hits.

Quinn O’Keefe picked up the win on the mound for St. Thomas Aquinas, working four innings of four-hit ball while striking out three and walking just one. Ben Frazier finished up with an inning in relief, allowing one hit while fanning two.

“Pitching was good, we threw strikes and got people out when we needed to,” Wardlow said.

St. Thomas Aquinas opens its Westminster Tournament schedule on Tuesday with a 7:30 p.m. game against American Heritage Plantation.

Cooper City, now 1-4 on the season, is at South Broward for a 6:30 p.m. Tuesday matchup.

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