Royal Palm Dethrones Atlantic in 7A-13

The Wildcats defeated the Eagles for t 7A-13 title.

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A year after joining it, the Royal Palm Beach Wildcats are champions of District 7A-13. They earned the distinction by stealing the crown from the defending champs, the Atlantic Eagles, who they beat by a score of 2-0 on Friday afternoon at Royal Palm Beach High.

Somewhere near the mid-point of the season, the Wildcats sat atop the district with a 6-3 record against 7A-13 opponents. But a late season swoon saw them lose four in a row while struggling mightily with the sticks. From there, the team turned things around though. It won two of its final three games, starting with an 8-3 win over the Eagles and ending with a 5-4 victory over District 8A-9’s top seed, Jupiter. The strong finish secured the third seed for the Wildcats, and they went on to beat Olympic Heights and Dwyer to earn the right to compete for the title.

“It’s awesome,” pitcher Zach Retzler said about winning the district. “Right before that Jupiter game, we really focused in. We wanted to win, wanted to go hot into districts. We beat a really good team, and then kept it going from there.”

Retzler played a big part in keeping it going, in fact. After shutting the door on Dwyer in the ninth inning of Wednesday’s extra-innings, semifinal affair, he recorded the win on Friday by not allowing a hit in four innings of relief work.

“Zach’s been great for us all year,” said Gabbard, “I knew that I was going to use him in this role today if we got that far.”

Logan Pittman drew the start for the pitching-strong Wildcats and battled to a scoreless tie through three innings. He allowed just two hits and two walks during his time on the hill, but found himself in a bit of trouble in both the second and fourth innings. He dodged a bullet with the bases loaded and two out in the second by inducing an inning-ending ground out.

The situation in the fourth was a little more precarious, and it started with a leadoff double by the Eagle’s Stefan Leclerc, who then moved up 90 feet on a passed ball. Plunking his mound opponent, Duane Cyr, with a 2-2 pitch then put runners on the corners with none out. That was when Wildcats Manager Kason Gabbard called on Retzler.

Retzler responded to the call by recording a fly out, and then getting lefty Justin Varisco to hit a ground ball back to the mound. Retzler fielded the ball cleanly then threw home to prevent the score and record the second out. A ground ball to shortstop which resulted in a force out at second finally completed the Wildcat’s tight-rope walk out of danger.

The Eagles made some noise in the dugout to support their batters.

“Coming in in the fourth or fifth, when they had runners on second and third with nobody out, that’s huge,” Gabbard gushed about his reliever. “But that’s how he’s been all year.”

Meanwhile, the Royal Palm offense missed out on some scoring opportunities of their own. Their first two batters of the game, Zach Odell and Sean Houck, reached via a base on balls and each proceeded to swipe second base. Odell ultimately was thrown out at third when he attempted to advance on a passed ball, while Houck’s journey around the bags ended with him being called out on a close play at home. He moved to third on a base hit into right field by Brandon Hernandez, and then, when Hernandez tried to stretch the hit into a double and got caught in a run down, Houck made his move home. Eagles shortstop Luis Beltran was wise to the trickery however, and fired home to prevent the run from scoring.

After Retzler’s heroics in the top of the fourth, the Wildcat’s were finally able to break through in the bottom half of the inning. Hernandez drew a walk to open the frame and advanced to second on Troy Hamilton’s single into left field. Tristan McKenzie tried to bunt them both up in the next at-bat, but the results were far better than he could have hoped for. A miscommunication by the Eagles resulted in an errant throw that allowed Hernandez to score and Hamilton to move to third. While Hamilton was eventually thrown out at home on a one-out, bases-loaded ground ball back to the mound, McKenzie did score when Luke Hollander drew the third walk of the inning, this time with the bases once again loaded.

The two runs were all the Wildcats would need, as Retzler stifled the Atlantic hitters the rest of the way.

“I was just focusing on throwing strikes and trying not to give up any runs,” Retzler said. “If I did, oh well. But I did my job. I didn’t give up any runs.”

Gabbard sees the final game of the regular season against Atlantic as the turning point in his team’ season.

“We changed our whole approach to batting,” said the Wildcats Manager. “Choking up, getting closer to the plate and just trying to put the ball in play, and it’s worked out the past four games. Hopefully we can keep continuing to do that and keep swinging at pitches in the strike zone. I’ve never had any doubts about our pitching and our defense this year; it’s always been pretty solid. If we can hit we’re going to compete, and it went our way today.”

Although disappointed with the loss, the Eagles can take consolation in knowing that their season still goes on. Both teams will take part in the upcoming regional playoffs, but Royal Palm will now have home field advantage in the first round.

Zach Retzler came on in the fourth and shut the Eagles down.

“Some days you come out on top and some days you don’t,” said Atlantic Manager Steve Wilson. “But, congratulations to Kason. He did a great job this year and they’re the district champion. The best thing is, we hope to play them again in two weeks.”

As for the Wildcat’s turnaround and new title of “District Champions,” the shortstop Hernandez always believed they could do it.

“I always had belief in my team,” said Hernandez, who led the club in batting this season. “We always worked hard. We lost some close games down the stretch but we knew we made mistakes so we knew what we needed to do to win this game and we did it. As a team.”

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