State baseball: St. Michael's advances to semifinal after routing Hope Christian

Lee Yobbi | The New Mexican

5/21/2008 - 5/22/08

ALBUQUERQUE — A team of destiny, it seems, met one of circumstance Wednesday.

Oddly enough, both got what they were looking for. And it's not often that can be said of a game called because of the 10-run mercy rule.

But that's exactly what happened at St. Pius X High School in a quarterfinal of the Class AAA State Baseball Tournament as St. Michael's beat Albuquerque Hope Christian 13-3 in five innings to advance to a semifinal against Portales.

"What can you say about it? They just hit the ball," said St. Michael's head coach Ken Duran.

The Horsemen pounded out 11 hits to earn their 22nd straight win, which etches a new single-season standard into the school record books. It breaks the mark set in 1997.

The Huskies, though, weren't crushed in the process.

"We got the two teams we wanted to play," said Huskies head coach Andrew Sanchez. "We got the defending champs (Raton in the first round) and the No. 1 seed. We came out and just wanted to give them a good game. I'm happy with the players."

It will be apparent later why Sanchez was happy after a 10-run loss, but first there's the matter of how that came about.

St. Michael's was in an environment that could only benefit it — 40 to 50 mph wind gusts that shook nearby traffic lights and repeatedly rattled the stands.

So much so, that at one point a public address speaker blew loose and struck a Huskies fan causing a gash on the top of her head. She would return to the game. It's baseball.

The gales were blowing out from left field to right-center, the power alleys for the right-handed-hitting Horsemen.

St. Michael's rode the winds, partly, to seven runs in the second inning, which erased a 2-0 Hope Christian advantage.

The Huskies (17-13) scored on the first pitch of the game as Landon Ryan hit a home run over the fence in right-center off Ryan Eustice.

Kyle Murphy had an RBI-double two batters later. But Eustice (5-1), who got the complete-game win, would be left in for the duration to save Ryan Crossingham and John Driscoll for the rest of the tournament.

The cushion was starting to be eliminated by three straight singles from the Horsemen to start the second. Then came a strikeout and a bases-loaded sacrifice fly by Terry Begaye.

There were two on when third baseman Jordan Romero drilled a drive to dead center. Both runs came home as the ball bounced high off the two-tiered wall. Romero held at third because there was no sign signaling a homer.

There is a yellow line bisecting the wall in straight-away center: above the line is a homer; below is in play. Duran appealed to the home-plate umpire and after a huddle of officials, it was ruled a dinger.

"I was coming around first and I saw the ball hit over the yellow," Romero said of his fourth home run. "I knew it was gone."

Huskies starter Kevin Gladwell left the inning after three straight walks and a Huskies' error that made it 5-2. Joel Vega spelled Gladwell and gave up two runs to Jake Winter on a double before getting out of the inning. Gladwell went 22/3 of and inning. Vega would last just 1/3 of an inning before Zeek Carrillo and Josh Branch would come into the game.

And that rotation was as much by design as it was by necessity.

"I didn't want them to get used to the speed," Sanchez said of the Horsemen. "I wanted to go fast, then go with an off-speed pitcher. I didn't want to get into a slugfest."

Sanchez's patch-work circumstance was brought on by the fact that he had all four of his pitchers leave the team before the season started; three because of withdraws and one because of injury.

Hence, the staff was made up of a catcher, a middle infielder, a junior varsity player, and a player returning from injury. That's how a head coach can be happy with a 10-run loss.

"They're the No. 1 team for a reason: The Horsemen have the horses," Sanchez said.

St. Michael's scored six runs in the sixth, highlighted by Jordan Duran's three-run bomb to right-center. It was the senior's team-leading 11th homer of the year and third in as many games.

Driscoll likes that kind of run production.

"I've got to stay ahead and hit my spots," said Driscoll, today's starter, "and let our sticks do the rest."

The Rams were impressive in a 16-9 win over Sandia Preparatory in the early game at St. Pius.

Portales will need every bit of its might to stay with a St. Michael's team that has won five of its last six games by 10 or more runs.