Stallions Slip Past Panthers in Regional Quarterfinal

Jonathan India stole home in the ninth to seal the victory and also had a two-run double earlier in the game.

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Sometimes, baseball games are so hard fought and tightly contested that it is almost a shame one team has to lose. Such was the case Wednesday night when the Somerset Academy Panthers traveled to American Heritage-Delray to take on the Stallions in a regional quarterfinal.

For much of the game, it looked as though the Stallions were going to cruise to a 4-1 win, but the Panthers rallied to tie it in the top of the seventh, forcing extra innings. Each team failed to capitalize on scoring opportunities in the eighth frame but a gutsy, go-for-broke decision by Heritage Manager Carm Mazza and shortstop Jonathan India resulted in the decisive run. Noticing that the Panthers’ catcher had been lobbing the ball back to the mound all game, they opted to take advantage to try to steal home. The call paid off. India broke just as the catcher tossed back to the mound. Caught by surprise, Panthers reliever Mark Bejar fired back to his battery mate, but the ball was dropped as India slid across the dish, securing a 5-4 victory for the Stallions.

“I’ve done it before, this season against Dwyer,” India said about the daring play. “I saw the catcher was on his knees the whole time, flipping them back nice and slow. My coach and I saw it, and we were like, ‘You know what, we have to do something here. We have to win the game for our team.’ And he did it again, so I took advantage of it, and I was glad I was safe.”

The heroic steal was the first base swiped in the game by a Heritage team that is known to be aggressive on the basepaths.

“Their starter did a good job of holding runners, and their catcher had a pretty ‘plus’ arm,” Mazza said. “We weren’t in an opportunity to force a bad throw with the catcher.”

Instead, they bided their time and waited for the right moment.

“We talked about it every single time that Jon and Tyler (Frank) got on third base tonight,” Mazza continued. “He wanted to do it earlier in the game and I said let’s just wait until two outs and see what happens. The opportunity didn’t come, but we knew it would come up again.”

For much of the contest, it never seemed such a decision would be necessary. After a busy first inning that saw the two teams jump out to a 1-1 tie, both teams took the second frame off before going back to work in the third.

Derek Cartaya reached on a controversial ruling at first base to lead off the game for the Panthers, then came around to score on a throwing error later in the inning. Tyler Frank started the Stallions’ first inning with a bang by crushing a ball into deep left field for a double and later scored on a Hunter Bowling sacrifice fly.

Kenny Moreno-Costa forced extra innings with a two-run single in the seventh.

Somerset loaded the bases with one out to start the third inning and would have surely taken the lead if Heritage catcher Chris Canavan had not nabbed Cartaya trying to steal third base. A high and deep fly ball to left field that ultimately got caught up in the wind and fell in for a base hit might also have given the Panther’s some runs if the runners had not been forced to tag up on the play.

After getting himself into the jam by issuing two free passes, Heritage starter Bowling went to work to get out of it though. He fanned the final two batters of the inning to escape unscathed and was nearly untouchable for the next three innings. He opened the fourth with another pair of strikeouts and finished with a total of nine through six innings.

“Throughout the whole season it has come to points where I get into jams and I just do my best to not let my teammates down,” Bowling said. “I just try and make a pitch that gets an out. Fortunately, I got the back-to-back strikeouts, and that was a blessing.”

Meanwhile, his offense gave him what appeared to be plenty of support by bringing across three runs in the bottom of the third. Frank led off with his second hit of the night, and Canavan was then hit by a pitch. India drove them both in with a hard-hit double into left field, then moved to third on Bowling’s groundout to first base. He made it 4-1 by beating Cartaya’s throw to the plate on Brendan Brundage’s ground ball to short in the next at-bat.

After struggling against Bowling for most of the night, the Panthers finally chased him with a lead-off walk by Bejar in the seventh. With just three outs separating them from the end of their season, Somerset hunkered down and waited out a trio of Stallion relievers who had trouble locating the strike zone. They drew two more walks to load the bases with none out before an RBI single by Juan Teixera shrunk the deficit to two. Kenny Moreno-Costa knotted things up by lining a two-run double that just made it over the outstretched glove of a leaping India.

Heritage put a runner in scoring position in each of the next two innings while Somerset advanced two runners to second base in the eighth, but the teams came away empty handed on all of those occasions.

Brandon Valentin started the night on the mound for the Panthers and made it all the way through the eight inning, striking out three and walking two in the process. He allowed eight hits on the night, but only one of those came after the fourth frame. Angel Sanchez spelled him to start the ninth, and the Stallions were finally able to give Somerset a taste of its own medicine.

Frank opened the inning with a walk but was immediately erased on a hot line drive back to the mound that resulted in a double play. A single by Bowling sandwiched in between another pair of walks loaded the bases for Heritage though, and that was when India seized the moment and made his mad dash home.

After escaping a bases-loaded jam in the third, Hunter Bowling was lights out the rest of the way.

“I’m very proud,” Somerset Manager Onel Garcia said. “We just came up a little short. We battled back from 4-1, you know. How can you be mad at them?”

The Panthers are a young squad, and many are competing in regional play for the first time. Garcia realizes that such an experience will be invaluable down the road.

“We’ve got 11 juniors coming back and only one senior starter, so that bodes well for us,” the veteran skipper said. “Our program keeps getting better, and I think we’re definitely a team to be reckoned with.”

The Stallions, on the other hand, are becoming the “Cardiac Kids” of Palm Beach County. They have been involved in several extra-inning affairs throughout the season, the most recent of which was an eight-inning, walk-off win over Cardinal Newman in last week’s district championship. Mazza thinks his team will learn from such adversity.

“We’ve done it all year,” Mazza said. “We’ve been in so many extra-innings games and we know how to get through them. We’re battle tested when it comes to that. We just have to keep growing to keep putting ourselves in positions to win games because it’s not easy from regionals on.”

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