Salomon Drives In Go-Ahead Run In 7th As Doral Wins The District Title

Doral Academy Firedbirds’ head coach Ernie Gonzalez could not be any prouder of his team. The players and fans felt the same way for him as they cheered on coach Gonzalez as he was presented the 4A District 15 championship trophy at home plate after the game. Doral and LaSalle split the two games in the regular season, but the Firebirds were able to beat LaSalle in an intense 2-1 ball game on Wednesday to win their first ever district title.

“I’m really proud of the guys,” coach Gonzalez said. “We’ve had our ups and downs this season, but we have battled until the very end and it feels awesome.”

The game was tied at one run a piece for almost the entire game. Doral’s Danny Rodriguez got things started for the Firebirds with a single and a stolen base early in the first inning. A few batter later, Chris Hernandez came up with a big single through the left side of the infield to bring Rodriguez around to score.

The Royal Lions stepped right up and answered in the bottom half of the first inning. LaSalle took advantage of some control issues from Doral’s starter Andy Navarrete and loaded the bases after two batters where hit by pitches and Eric Valdes singled to left field. Then catcher Jonathan Cata knocked a ground ball to left field and drove in Yordan Piedra from third to tie the game at one.

Navarrete settled into his game and followed up with a strike out and forced a ground ball to third base to get out of the inning with minimal damage.

“Navarrete had a little bit of a rough start,” coach Gonzalez said. “But we told him to stay positive and we always try to wipe off any negative emotions and go on to the next pitch.”

After the first inning it became a pitchers’ duel between Navarrete and LaSalle’s starter Brent Thomas. Navarrete went five innings and did a great job forcing the Royal Lions into ground balls and double plays to keep them off the scoreboard. His counterpart, Thomas, was excellent as well. Thomas went six and one-third innings striking out five hitters and did a good job using his curve ball to keep hitters off balance.

“Brent has such a bright future,” LaSalle head coach Oscar Benitez said. “We lost our top two pitchers (from last season) and he has stepped up and dominated the strike zone, but we just haven’t been able to put runs together to get the win for him.”

Everytime it seemed LaSalle was starting to make some noise and get a runner on base, Doral always made a huge defensive play to get themselves out of the hole. In the second and third inning, the Firebirds were able to turn crucial double plays to avoid big innings from LaSalle. Then again in the fifth, after a double by Thomas and an error that allowed him to get to third, Yordan Piedra hit a sacrifice fly to right field and courtesy runner Rodrigo Sarmiento tagged up and was on his way home but was thrown out on a great throw from Javy Garcia.

“There were a lot of big plays for us on the field today, especially that bang-bang play at home.” coach Gonzalez added. “And it just feels great because I have a lot of respect for LaSalle and coach Benitez and they’re a great team and our guys stepped up in the game.”

On top of the great defense for Doral, senior third baseman and reliever, Danny Salomon played a huge role in the victory Wednesday night. In the seventh inning, Danny Rodriguez hit a deep shot to right field off the wall for a triple. Then Salomon came up and sent a hard-hit ball right back up the middle to bring in the go ahead run.

“At that point I wasn’t trying to do to much and just look outside, and I was able to throw my hands out at it and it felt great.” Salomon added.

Salomon also came in to pitch for the Firebirds in the sixth and seventh inning. He gave up two hits, but just like Navarrete, he was able to shut down the Royal Lions when he needed to the hold off for the close win.

“We had plenty of opportunities to score but we just weren’t able to make the big hit today,” coach Benitez mentioned. “We will take a positive look to this game and will build off of it, but Doral has a great team and they deserve it.”

Doral and LaSalle will both advance into the FHSAA regional playoffs next week, but will have to wait until tonight to find out who they will play. Their opponents will be the winner and loser of the St. Brendan Sabres and the Gulliver Raiders district title game.

“We can’t get too big on this win and too low on a loss, we need to stay humble,” Salomon said. “We need to look forward now and stay focused as we will play either St. Brendan or Gulliver, which are both great teams.”

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