Late Rally Lifts Cardinal Gibbons Past Sagemont

Cardinal Gibbons manufactured four runs in the seventh inning to rally past Sagemont, 5-2, Tuesday at Tequesta Trace Park.

Trailing 2-1 and doing next to nothing against Sagemont left-hander Zachary Stephens, the Chiefs went small ball in their final at-bat. Travis Hogan opened the inning with a single, their only hit of the inning. A walk and then a perfectly placed sacrifice bunt by George Stringos put the go-ahead runners in scoring position.

Hogan scored the tying run on a passed ball and senior third baseman Jason Vasquez, who went 2-for-3 for the game, lifted a sacrifice fly to plate Peyton Douglas-Nash with the go-ahead run. A two-out error allowed the final two insurance markers to score.

“Their left-hander Zachary Stephens threw a great game; deserved to win, kept us off balance all night long,” Cardinal Gibbons manager Jason Hamilton said. “We had some really good at-bats at the end – sacrifice bunt, got guys over and that brought up our #3 (Vasquez) and #4 (Eddie Marshall) hitters who did a good job.”

Stephens went six innings for Sagemont, striking out seven while allowing five hits and just one earned run.

The Chiefs countered with a trio of arms that performed well. Michael Kass worked the first four innings, striking out three while giving up just four hits. Brenden Trujillo and Mike Ragusa combined for three innings of scoreless relief, striking out five while giving up just two hits between them.

“Our pitchers threw very well,” Hamilton said. “We thought that Sagemont’s lineup was a very good lineup. One of the best hitting lineups that we’ve seen so far. And our pitchers did a good job.”

Sagemont held leads of 1-0 in the first inning and 2-1 after three. A two-out rally led to the Lions’ first-inning lead. Joshua Agriesta was hit by a pitch and came around to score on singles by Gio Molina and David Perez.

Ivan Pagan tied it in the second inning for Cardinal Gibbons. He reached on an error, advanced to third on a single by Douglas-Nash, and scored on an error.

The Lions regained the lead, 2-1, in the third inning when Agriesta doubled home Christopher Alfonsecca, who opened the inning with a single.

“It was a really good game, a painful game to watch for a couple of innings,” Hamilton said. “Sagemont and their lefty really deserved to win tonight. But, as I told our kids at the end of the game, a bad team or an average team doesn’t come back and win that like we did.

“So, we’re a good team and we’ve been in that position before already this year and it was nice to see the kids come back and have a nice win tonight because a loss would have hurt as all losses hurt.”

The Chiefs, now 6-1-1 for the season, take a five-game win streak into Thursday’s 3:45 p.m. home game with Deerfield Beach while Sagemont (2-3) looks to snap out of a three-game skid when the Lions visit Dade Christian for a 3:30 p.m. Thursday encounter.

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