Columbus Shuts Out Southwest For 8A District 15 Championship

The Columbus Explorers looked like a team on a mission on Friday afternoon. The Explorers played fundamental baseball to jump on the Southwest Miami Eagles early as they went on to win the 8A District 15 championship 7-0.

“It feels awesome to win the district and it has been a couple of years since we have been able to do it,” Columbus second baseman Frank Navarrete said. “And going into the playoffs, we just want to keep things going and keep on running.”

Columbus got contributions from everyone in the lineup. Six players came around to score and every hitter got on base at least once.

“That is something we talked about and we are proud of because we were able to get contributions one through nine today, and that is huge,” Columbus head coach Joe Weber said.

Explorers leadoff hitter Laz Rivera opened the first inning with a walk and advanced to second after a well-executed bunt from second baseman Frank Navarrete. After Southwest elected to intentionally walk Mike Vinson with two outs and Rivera on third base, Nelson Mompierre made the Eagles pay with an RBI single to right field to take the lead.

In the first inning, the Columbus hitters were caught off guard a little with Southwest’s starter Fernando Rabel throwing a lot of off speed pitches with great movement. However, they made slight adjustments and began to drive the ball in the second inning. Catcher Chris Perez sent a pitch right back up the middle to get on with one out. Kevin Suarez was up to bat next and came through with a nice hit-and-run with courtesy runner Yency Almonte to put runners on first and third.

Rivera and Frank Navarrete made things happen again for the Explorers. Rivera got a hold of a pitch and sent it deep to left field for a sacrifice fly to bring in Almonte from third. Then Navarrete hit a double to bring Suarez in and extend the lead. Navarrete then used his speed to take third on a wild pitch and scored when the catcher tried to rush the throw to try to get him out at third.

“I pride myself in doing the little things and whatever it takes for the team to win,” Navarrete said. “I’m the guy that will steal bases, bunt a guy over and try to do what ever coach asks for to contribute.”

The Explorers weren’t satisfied with their 4-0 lead after two innings. In the bottom half of the third, Perez came up again and hit a two-run double to the right-center field gap to drive in Mompierre and Brent Diaz to give Columbus a comfortable 6-0 lead.

Navarrete added another run to the Explorers total in the sixth inning. After walking to first and advancing to second on a ground ball to first, Navarrete used his speed again to steal third base. Then with a runner on first and Navarrete on third, Weber called for Mike Pino to steal second base and told Navarrete to steal home as soon as the Southwest catcher threw to second. The call worked out perfectly as Navarrete was safe at home for his second run scored in the game.

Columbus starter Luis Collazo took the run support and pitched a great game. He was dominant from his very first pitch in which he forced the Southwest leadoff hitter to pop out to the second baseman. Collazo pitched four innings and only found himself in a little trouble in the fourth inning after giving up a couple of singles. With bases loaded and one out, Collazo recorded his fifth strike out and got a routine ground ball to the shortstop to work his way out of the jam without allowing a run.

“We just didn’t do much right today,” Southwest head coach Jose Torres said. “We didn’t pitch very well, threw a few balls away, and we need to score some runs to win.”

In the fifth inning, Weber decided to bring in Ryan Guerra to pitch. Guerra picked up right were Collazo left off and only allowed two hits in his three innings of work. He finished out the game and was able to keep the shutout for the Explorers by forcing many infield pop flies.

“Collazo was great and able to pick up his second win this week as he can in for an inning in our comeback win on Wednesday,” Weber said. “And Ryan does what he always does, goes out there throws strikes and doesn’t hurt himself.”

The Southwest Eagle are not out of the hunt yet as they advance to a regional quarterfinal Thursday at District 16-8A champion Killian.

“We are going to use this week to get back and have better at-bats and have a better approach,” Torres said. “Experience is a great teacher and we will use this a something to learn from. We will be back at it Thursday ready to go.”

Columbus will host Southridge in its regional quarterfinal. The Explorers won 5-4 against Southridge a few weeks back, and they are expecting another good game next week.

“We just want to be playing good baseball at this time of the year because no team is going to give you anything,” Weber said. “It’s usually the team that makes the least mistakes, walks the fewer people and executes the most that are going to win, so that is what we will try to do.”

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