Estancia baseball advances to Division V regional championship game

Estancia weathered some tough games en route to its first CIF Southern Section baseball championship — needing extra innings to pull out semifinal and title-game victories — but it ran into a situation Thursday afternoon that it hadn’t faced in this most special of seasons.

The Eagles conceded as many runs in the third inning of their CIF Southern California Regional semifinal as they had permitted through their first six playoff games, going down by three in a win-or-die clash against a top program with its ace in form.

No problem. Estancia (30-5) answered with three runs, aided by a couple of errors, to pull even in the bottom of the inning, pushed across another with back-to-back doubles in the fourth, then held on for a 4-3 triumph over visiting Delano Kennedy to march into Saturday’s Division V final.

Andrew Mits scored the winning run, coming home on Jack Moyer’s double through the right-field gap, then shut down the Central Section Division 6 champions for the final four innings, improving to 11-4 with his eighth complete game in 16 starts.

One more win will give the top-seeded Eagles their second championship in two weeks, and they’ll aim to do so at home, where they’re 19-1 this year. They’ll send senior right-hander Trevor Scott (10-1, 1.31 ERA) against the winner of Friday’s semifinal, either No. 2-seeded Anaheim (22-10-1), which they beat in 11 innings in the section’s Division 6 final two Saturdays ago, or Division 7 champ Baldwin Park (21-11), the No. 3 seed.

If that scenario seemed in doubt after two and half innings, the Eagles thought otherwise.

“Just told them to peck away, get at least one,” head coach Nate Goellrich said. “For us to get three back right away, I thought, was the key of the game. Just brought us back. We’re a championship team, we showed it in that inning, then allowed for us to get another run in the fourth and hold on for dear life.”

Kennedy (22-8) put their leadoff hitters on base in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings, but couldn’t move them into scoring position and were flummoxed by a tough interference call that erased their base runner with two out in the seventh. Moyer’s errant throw at shortstop then let Julian Orozco reach base, but right fielder James De La O backed up the play and gunned him down trying to take second for the final out.

“We’ve never been a team to give up. We’ve always fought through everything,” said Mits, a sophomore right-hander. “Down 3-0, bottom of the inning, we bounce right back, and it’s a 0-0 ballgame [again]. It was a refresh for all of us, a reset, that confidence-booster, and we took it to them.”

Mits gave up six hits and two walks, hit a batter and struck out nine while surrendering just his seventh, eighth and ninth earned runs of the season (pushing his ERA to 0.66).

The Thunderbirds, who also won a Central Section title last year, went ahead with four hits to begin the third. Jude De La Cueva homered to right after working an 0-2 count to 3-2.

“I threw it where I wanted it, he took it for a ride, and props to him,” Mits said.

Jeremiah Guerra followed with a high-hop infield single and Orozco with a bloop hit to left, and both came home on Ever Murguia’s double to deep left.

Estancia made up for it right away, with just one of the three runs earned. Moyer led off with a walk and right-hander Miguel Barraza plunked Andrew Coyotzi to put runners at first and second. Scott’s failed sacrifice forced out Moyer at third, and De La O singled to center, which should have loaded the bases.

Instead, De La Cueva misplayed the ball, allowing Coyotzi to score, and Guerra’s errant throw on the relay — his third error of the game — brought home Scott. Cole Lefebvre then singled to right, scoring De La O with the third run.

Estancia took the lead in the fourth. Mits’ one-out drive to the right-field gap got past a diving De La Cueva, and Moyer followed with a double to the wall, following virtually the same path as Mits’ hit.

“I was thinking base hit the other way scores him,” Moyer said. “Fastball away, drive it to the other side. Got one in the gap, so felt good to get a double out of it.”

An odd play, in which Moyer was called out for running outside the baseline in a rundown between third and home, ended the threat, but it was enough. Mits kept Kennedy at bay the rest of the way, and this most unexpected of seasons has one more game to go.

“We didn’t think [when the season started that] we’d be in the championship game of our state regional playoff,” said Goellrich, who had guided the Eagles for six years, then stepped down to become athletic director for four years. “We thought we had a good team, but we had to learn a lot. They won seven games last year [and have a] new coach this year, and all credit to the guys. They bought in, worked hard, and each game we keep finding ways to [win] it, and that’s all you can ask. And these games are huge.

“We’re just getting better and better and finding new situations to get better, and the resiliency of this group is just unbelievable. ... We feel confident that whoever we play Saturday is going to have to play a great game to take it from us.”

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