Gilroy – Four times Archbishop Mitty went ahead. Four times Gilroy came back to tie the Monarchs.
But a fifth Mustang comeback was asking too much.
After 10 innings of classic postseason baseball in Wednesday’s first round game of the Central Coast Section Division I baseball playoffs, No. 7 seed Gilroy succumbed to 10th-seeded defending CCS champ Mitty 8-6 after the Monarchs mustered four hits in the final inning and scored two runs. In the bottom of the 10th, the host Mustangs were unable to rally one more time for the win.
“That’s just baseball. You can do a lot of things right sometimes and still lose,” said sophomore right fielder Kevin Grove, who personally accounted for two of the Mustang comebacks with a pair of solo home runs. “Every time they got a run, we came back. We just didn’t get ahead.”
The Mustangs closed the books on a 16-11 season, during which they won eight of their last 10 games just to get into the playoffs. Archbishop Mitty (16-13) will move on to play top-seeded Bellarmine in Saturday’s quarterfinals.
Many times this season, Gilroy head coach Clint Wheeler has been frustrated by his squad not playing to its potential. But that wasn’t the case Wednesday.
“I’m just really proud of them. They battled back for 10 innings,” the coach said. “You can’t fault their effort.”
Mitty broke a tie game and took a 5-4 lead on the Mustangs in the sixth inning. But Grove provided the first late-inning, game-evening run when he roped a pitch from Mitty starter Patrick McClain just fair over the fence in left field. The home run was one of three on the day for the Mustangs. In addition to Grove’s two, junior Matt Hemeon, who also homered in the team’s regular season finale against Sobrato, hit one out of the park in the bottom of the second inning.
“Both of those guys have been hitting well,” Wheeler said. “When it heats up, this field is pretty lively. It showed that today.”
After Grove’s home run, the score remained knotted at 5-5 through the seventh inning. But Mitty’s Nick Burton put the Monarchs ahead 6-5 in the top of the eighth when he ripped an offering from Gilroy pitcher Jacob Dexter for a line drive RBI double.
But again, Grove delivered. The sophomore hit his second home run over the Gilroy scoreboard in left-center field which kept the Mustangs alive.
The score remained tied at six until the tenth inning when the Monarchs scored two runs off four hits.
