Bovee, 6-Run First Give Mira Mesa 3-A Crown

They danced exactly as they had a year ago.

Only this time, center stage was San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, and the music began playing before any outs were recorded in bottom of the first inning.

After a walk and six consecutive hits to open its half of the first, Mira Mesa waltzed to a 7-0 victory over Montgomery and its second straight San Diego Section 3-A baseball championship in front of 2,500 Thursday night.

Six of those runs, the second most allowed by Montgomery (22-6-1) in any game this season, came in the first.

From there, senior right-hander Mike Bovee (11-2) took care of the rest. Top-seeded Mira Mesa (28-4-1) finished with the second highest victory total in section history. Grossmont, which won the preceding 2-A game, 3-0, over Mission Bay, finished with 29 victories for the second year in a row.

Bovee, one of the top professional prospects in the county, pitched a three-hitter--Montgomery started off the game with two hits--and struck out 12, including the side in the top of the seventh, setting off a wild celebration that had been brewing for nearly two hours.

“We were ready,” said Bovee, who pitched the final inning of last year’s 8-1 championship victory over Monte Vista after sitting out more than half the season with a broken ankle. “We had been hitting the ball well in practice all week. This didn’t surprise me that much.”

It did surprise Montgomery.

“I thought we were flat,” Aztec right fielder Mike Wazal said. “Maybe it was the night. We were dazed. We were tight.”

Montgomery’s starter, junior David Silvas, who missed two-thirds of the season with a shoulder injury, failed to get an out before being replaced by sophomore Pedro Ramirez.

Silvas (3-1) began by walking leadoff hitter Marc Nielsen. And then it got ugly.

In order, Mira Mesa’s Brendan Hause tripled to deep center field, Frankie Edsall lined a single to right, Bovee looped a single to right center and Drew Arnold lined a triple to right.

That was all for Silvas, but not Mira Mesa.

Jason Payne greeted Ramirez with a sharp single between short and third, and Phillip Henry ripped a single to right to make it 5-0 with nobody out.

The sixth run came in on a bunt by No. 8 hitter Ryan Cunningham.

“I felt good,” Silvas said. “They just hit me.”

What made Mira Mesa’s rally even more impressive was that second-seeded Montgomery won its second consecutive Metro Conference championship this season while allowing less than one earned run per game.

Mira Mesa Coach Mike Prosser, whose team last year was inspired by an “insulting” No. 15 seed in the playoffs, said this year’s team was riled by an article in a local paper that he said indicated the Marauders were nothing more than an average team without Bovee.

“People forget that Mike wasn’t with us most of last year,” Prosser said. “And these are essentially the same guys we won with last year. They were a little offended by that. And when they came up, they hit the ball as well as you can ask.”

Said Montgomery Coach Manny Hermosillo, whose team was playing in its first championship game, “We got ambushed. We got ambushed by a great team. They took it to us early. And it’s tough to come back off a great pitcher like Bovee.

“They only needed one run with the way he was pitching, and they got six.”