Royal Palm Punches Ticket To jetBlue

Brandon Hernandez initiated the scoring with an RBI triple in the first inning.

Photo Gallery

The Royal Palm Beach Wildcats are headed to the state tournament. The last time that happened, the year was 2000 and Kason Gabbard was in his senior season with the team.

Now, 16 years later, Gabbard has come full circle, leading his alma mater back to the big dance in his first season as manager of the Wildcats.

“We were in the same boat as we were tonight and we won the regional championship at Palm Beach State College,” Gabbard recalled about his playing days. “It’s awesome being back as coach now and being in control of it, but a part of me wants to be on the field helping them out.”

As much as that might have helped, his team had no need for him when they squared off against St. Thomas Aquinas for the regional championship on Tuesday night. They performed almost flawlessly in every aspect of the game en route to a 4-0 upset of the visiting Raiders.

Since the playoffs began, Gabbard’s strategy for his offensively challenged team has been to trot out his nearly un-hittable ace, Tristan McKenzie, and hope that the bats could eke out a run or two in support of him. On Tuesday, McKenzie did his part, as usual. He fanned 10 batters while pitching a complete game shut-out and carried a no-no into the top of the seventh inning.

He started the night off on an uncharacteristic note though, issuing two free passes with two out in the first inning, and the first of those batters, Gary Mattis, was able to swipe second and third base before being nabbed at home to end the inning.

From there, the usual plan took a pleasantly unexpected turn for the Wildcats as their lineup came through with two critical hits in the bottom half of the first to stake their pitcher to a 2-0 lead.

Raider starter Johnny Leone also had command issues at the onset, giving up leadoff walks to Zach Odell and Sean Houck to start the game. Odell was eventually picked off of first base, but Houck fared much better.

Number three hitter Brandon Hernandez stayed back and made contact with an 0-1 pitch that landed just inside the right field line and proceeded to roll into the corner of the outfield, giving him plenty of time to round to third while Houck came home for the first run of the game.

“As I was running down the line, I was like ‘Stay fair, stay fair,’ and it did,” Hernandez said about the big hit. “I got a good piece. I just put my bat out because he was throwing outside and it landed in the right spot. It was a good way to start of the game.”

One out later, McKenzie did his part on offense by bouncing a 1-1 pitch over the third baseman’s head for a double that plated Hernandez.

Leone found his groove in the second and third innings but the Royal Palm offense struck again in the fourth, again led by Hernandez. This time, the senior shortstop led off the frame by hustling out an infield single and was then bunted to second by Troy Hamilton. A walk and a passed ball put McKenzie on second for Sean Malynn, who took full advantage by ripping a two-run single through the right side of the infield.

“The first at-bat, I worked to the right side and I flew out but I was staying on the ball,” said Malynn. “I just thought, ‘Stay more down through it.’ I got two strikes on me and I just got really dialed in. He gave me a fat pitch on the outside and I just went with it. I was hyped. It was awesome.”

Nick Marchese broke up a no-hitter and almost started a rally in the seventh.

With the lead expanded to four, McKenzie also dialed in on the mound. He had narrowly escaped another jam in the top of the third, when an error and base on balls put two runners in scoring position with just one out. Third baseman Houck helped his pitcher out of trouble by making a bare-handed scoop and throw of a soft grounder down the line and McKenzie returned the favor by retiring the side in order in each of his next three trips to the mound. He put an exclamation mark on that run by striking out the side in the sixth.

He then struck out the first batter of the seventh, putting him two outs away from a no-hitter in the biggest game of the year.

That’s when St. Thomas made its move. Nick Marchese singled in the next at-bat. Anthony Mulrine and Carter White followed suit to load the bases and bring the tying run to the plate.

“Never do I come into a game thinking I’m going to come out and not let anybody get hits,” McKenzie said afterwards when asked if the no-hit bid weighed on his mind when he took the hill in the final inning. “I mean, that would be great, but that’s not what I go out there and do. I go out there and try and perform for my team and try to get them no runs, like I did, and hopefully we can put runs on the board on our side and we can win games.”

Much of the credit for not allowing any runs in this one falls to the Wildcats’ Zach Retzler, the team’s closer. This time, he did not perform his heroics on the mound, however. After an ejection forced Gabbard to shuffle his infield, Retzler wound up playing second base for the first time in years.

The next batted ball by the Raiders looked to be a sure-fire single that would drop into shallow right field and score a run, if not two. Retzler raced back and made a snow-cone, over-the-shoulder catch to prevent that from happening though.

“My adrenaline was pumping,” Retzler said. “I saw the ball in the air and I just took off, stuck my hand out and it fell in.”

Gabbard, who admits to being more nervous as a manager than he ever was as a player, which included a stint in the majors, said that the situation had his stomach in knots but credited the catch as being perhaps the most decisive play of the game.

“Zach’s never played second base before,” Gabbard said. “He doesn’t have good footwork. He has a good glove though, and that’s why we put him in that situation.”

First baseman Nick Fernandez drifted back into foul territory to put away a pop fly in the next at-bat and ice the Wildcats’ first trip to state in 15 years.

The magnitude of the accomplishment is not lost on McKenzie.

“For the school, it’s great,” the pitcher said. “It’s bringing a lot of attention to baseball, and it’s bringing back a lot of tradition. For our team, it’s great because it brings us together, and it’s kind of humbling knowing that were the first team to do this since 2000.”

Sean Malynn came through with a two-run single in the fourth inning.

Though their rival in the state semifinals is yet to be determined, Hernandez believes if he and his team keep playing as they have been, things will work themselves out.

“We have to go out there just like we’ve been doing,” said Hernandez. “Work hard, play the teams hard, don’t give up and just see what happens.”

This defeat was particularly hard on a Raiders club that believed it had the goods to go all the way.

“You feel bad for the seniors, you know,” St. Thomas Manager Troy Cameron said. “We had a pretty good team. We certainly thought we were going to win it all. Then you run into a pitcher like this, and good pitching beats good hitting and you saw that tonight, because we had a very good team.”

While obviously disappointed, Cameron takes pride in the way his team fought back in the end.

“My kids didn’t give up,” Cameron said. “So if there’s a silver lining to the whole thing, its that my kids kept fighting all the way to the last pitch.”

Leave a comment using your facebook account!