Jupiter Returns To State Finals With 6-4 Win Over Hagerty

Winning at the state tournament never comes easy, if it comes at all.

Friday night’s marquee 7A state semifinal match-up exemplified that challenge, as the Hagerty Huskies and Jupiter Warriors dueled right down to the last strike. With the tying run represented at the plate in the bottom of the seventh inning, Jupiter reliever Braedon Hopkins played the final hero by inducing the final out on an infield grounder to secure a 6-4 victory.

Hopkins was far from the only hero for the Warriors, who benefited from key contributions all night long to earn a return to the 7A state final. Jupiter (25-9) won it all back in 2018, and now the next generation of Warriors look to cement their legacy in team history.

“I want us to win. I don’t care if I go 0-for-4 or 4-for-4; I just want to get that ‘W’ for my team,” junior outfielder Griffin Miller said. “I’m going to leave it all on the line for my team. We’ve wanted this game all year, and we’re going to leave it all out there.”

Miller set the tone at the top of the batting order, sparking a three-run first inning that provided the Warriors with a lead that they never surrendered. Miller smacked a double down the line to begin the game, Brady Blanks followed with an RBI single past the shortstop, and just like that Jupiter had the lead before most fans had taken their seats.

“I’m just a competitor. I go out there and compete for my teammates, and I do my best to get on base,” Miller said. “He was a good pitcher on the mound tonight, but talking with my teammates and our coaches, we felt like ‘we’ve got this’. We’ve seen this all season. Coach has done a great job scheduling good pitchers, and we’ll put it together. We didn’t give it our best shot today, and we still have more in the tank for our lineup. But we swung it pretty well.”

Colton Schwarz kept the fire going in the first by lining a double down the left field line to put both base runners in scoring position. Jake Finnegan supplied a sac-fly RBI to drive in Blanks, and Andrew Abad added an RBI single to right to make it a three-run frame.

Although Hagerty answered back by plating a run in the bottom of the first, Jupiter responded right back by putting up another crooked number with two runs in the second. Another run followed in the fourth to close out the Warriors’ scoring, as the pitching and defense were more heavily relied upon down the stretch after the Huskies rallied to make it a game again.

“Offensively, we really came out swinging the bats, so there wasn’t much that I had to do but just let them swing the bats,” Jupiter Manager Joe Giummule said. “But as the game settled in and Hagerty started finding its groove, it became a ball game. Then small-ball comes into effect, and pitching match ups come into effect. We just had a little more in the tank, or we had just a big-enough cushion to survive.”

Schwarz delivered the big knock in the second to stuff the cushion, with a grounder past third that drove in a pair. Ed Otero led off with a single to left and Miller followed with another double to set the table for Schwarz.

“My approach is to sit on the fastball and react to the curve,” said Miller, who was 3-for-5. “I know no one can beat me right now; my swing is just so quick and I feel really good and really loose in the box. I’m putting good swings out there now, and that’s all I can say.”

A run in the third inched the Huskies closer, before two more runs in the fourth closed the gap too close for comfort. Giummule moved chess pieces around the board all night long, working to get the most from every crucial at bat and every pivotal pitch. With the offense unable to produce runs down the stretch, other aspects became more vital to close out the win.

“I didn’t say a lot, other than to be aggressive in fastball counts,” Giummule said. “They’ve heard it. It’s a pressure situation, and you have to give them credit, because they are very good. They are allowed to make good pitches and they are allowed to be good, too. It’s challenging, because it isn’t just a regular pitcher on the mound. It’s big-time competition, big-boy 7A baseball. I’m emotionally, physically, and mentally just drained. Hagerty gave us everything we could handle.”

The Warriors had studs of their own, as well. Starter Ethan Trivison battled through five gritty innings to earn the win, scattering five hits and two walks while allowing all four earned runs. The veteran left-hander struck out three while using 91 pitches to go five full.

“It’s an incredible experience. Not a lot of people get to do what I just did. It’s awesome,” Trivison said. “The warm-up felt really good, but the timing felt a little off. I felt a little rushed. But I was able to focus on calming down and not letting the moment get too big, and try to slow down the game in the bullpen, so that when I get out there things won’t seem like they’re going 100 miles per hour. We’ve been working so hard all season, and the guys behind me believe that I’m going to get that job done, and I believe that I did that job today.”

When Trivison ran into trouble with a lead-off walk in the sixth, the Warriors turned to reliever Ryder Bennett to hold the line. The left-hander answered the call by throwing a scoreless inning, with a swinging strikeout that ended the frame and stranded two base runners. Although he hit a batter, both balls put in play were cleanly fielded to effectively quell the threat.

“I went in with a runner on first, so I went in there just spinning strikes, strikes, strikes. That was all I was thinking,” Bennett said. “We started off with a lot of fastballs in the beginning, and I wasn’t really locating, so I went to the breaking ball a lot. I started landing that for strikes and got my confidence back up, and once my confidence was there, we went right back to the fastball. It just worked. It was a huge situation, just so much energy, so much on the line. You just live for that as a baseball player.”

After threatening again in the seventh, but again being held back, Jupiter turned to Hopkins to record those final essential outs.

“I have to give thanks to Coach. He put me in situations all throughout the year to get ready for this,” Hopkins said. “Everything at Key West and Orlando was just built for this moment. So I went out there with that preparation and I was ready.”

Hopkins excelled at keeping the ball low in looking for some routine grounders, although his first two outs came as high fly balls that easily found gloves. He then finally got the grounder he was looking for, a roller to Finnegan that was fired across to first baseman Brady Blanks to end the game.

“I’m more of a ground-ball pitcher. Strikeouts are nice, but a ground ball will get the team some action,” Hopkins said. “They are playing with me out there, and I couldn’t have done it without Jake, Eddie, or any of them. If they don’t catch those balls then it’s a different ball game. I trusted them and they trusted me. We built trust all throughout the season. Our team is very tight, and we’ve all been playing throughout the years since middle school or even T-Ball growing up together. So trust is just built through the hardships.”

Now the Warriors face perhaps the toughest hardship of the season, needing to take down the Golith known as the Douglas Eagles in order to win their second state title. Douglas has won the past four 7A championships, and is playing for state history in looking to become the only school ever to win five straight.

“It’s the big guy on the block, and they are the state champions until someone knocks them off,” Giummule said. “But we were the last ones to win it, since they have been on their run. So, hopefully we can flip the switch.”

Leave a comment using your facebook account!