St. Monica baseball comes back to take care of New Roads

The St. Monica Academy baseball team has become accustomed at battling late in close games this season.

Coming into Thursday afternoon’s nonleague game against New Roads, the Crusaders had already taken part in five games where the result was determined in the final inning or in extra innings.

Again, St. Monica found itself in a tight game down the stretch against the Jaguars. Battling back from one-run deficits twice, the Crusaders broke a tie with two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to pull out a 5-3 victory against New Roads at Scholl Canyon Ballfields.

It was the fourth straight victory for St. Monica (4-2).

“Coming back late has kind of been our thing. I’m kind of smiling because in all of our six games we’ve either won it or lost in in the seventh inning,” said St. Monica Coach Phil Gleason, whose squad won the International League championship last season. “We have a 4-2 record and there hasn’t been an easy one all year.

“But I’m really proud of the way these guys have battled this year. As a team, they’re really bonding and they are out there having fun. Also, the great thing is they believe in each other.”

Moving up from CIF Southern Section Division VII to Division VI, Gleason has tried to schedule quality opponents for his Crusaders. New Roads (3-3) also made the jump from Division VII to Division VI after advancing to the quarterfinals in 2016.

“The last six teams that we played all made it to the CIF playoffs last year,” Gleason said. “Those are the teams you want to go against to test yourself and to get the competition. Against all of those teams we’ve competed. I’m very proud of the boys.”

St. Monica used aggressive base running, with seven steals, timely hitting and took advantage of New Roads miscues to gain the victory.

With the scored tied at 3 in the sixth inning, the Crusaders pushed across two runs in their half of the stanza. With one out, sophomore Carlie Boles drew a walk and proceeded to steal second and third. Junior Beau Barry plated Boles with a single up the middle. Barry also stole second and third and scored on a throwing error to third.

“It’s nice that we have been able to come back in close games, but it would be nice to be able to score some runs early so we wouldn’t have to do that,” said Barry, who went two for three with a walk, a run batted in and two runs scored.

“When we fall behind we just have to keep up the positive energy. We try not to get down and just try and string some hits together.”

After the Jaguars scored a run in the top of the first, St. Monica came back to knot the score at 1 in the bottom of the first. Barry singled to center field and eventually scored on a passed ball.

In the top of the third, New Roads took a 2-1 lead with a single run.

But again the Crusaders responded in their half of the frame, tallying two runs to go up, 3-2. Senior Jack Golbranson led off the inning with a triple to deep right-center field and scored on a groundout by junior Nicholas Nieva. With two outs, sophomore Mark Golbranson (one for one with two walks and a run scored) singled to right, stole second and came around on a throwing error by the pitcher.

The Crusaders made the most of just five hits on the day.

Senior pitcher Riley Gosnell picked up the win in relief, going three innings, allowing one run on one hit, walking two and striking out two.

“We play an aggressive style at St. Monica and I think that has kept us in a lot of these games,” said sophomore third baseman Peter Talbot. “We’re really disciplined as a team and I think that helps as well.”

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Jeff Tully, jeff.tully@latimes.com

Twitter: @jefftsports