Conley Diaz Throws Near-Perfect Game to Help St. Brendan Advance

In the bright sun and extreme heat no one appeared cooler than St. Brendan senior starting pitcher Conley Diaz. He took the mound in the fifth, still wearing shades, having gone through the first four innings facing the minimum 12 batters.

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His perfect game was only lost after he struck out the LaSalle Royal Lions’ first batter of the fifth, who was able to reach first on a passed ball. Diaz got the next batter to fly out and struck out the next batter for the second out of the inning. That’s when starting pitcher for LaSalle, Brent Thomas came to the plate.

Trying to do anything he could to help spark his team, and his own cause on the mound, Thomas blooped a ball into shallow left field, breaking up Diaz’ no-hitter. The next batter, Francis Mijares, grounded to the right side and the second baseman covered a good amount of distance to reach the hit, but he bobbled the ball and rushed his throw to first. The first baseman, in an attempt to reach for the throw, interfered with Mijares and as a result of the interference call both runners that were on base were awarded home and Mijares was awarded second base.

The next batter popped out to end the inning and Diaz faced the minimum in the sixth and seventh to secure the 3-2 win for the Sabres, who will now move on to face Gulliver Prep in a regional semifinal game on Tuesday.

Other than the fifth inning the Sabres’ defense was flawless, as was Diaz. He finished with a line of 7 IP, 1 H, 5 K’s and 0 BB’s, and he seemed to do it with an enviable calmness.

“The whole year he has pitched extremely well,” head coach for St. Brendan John Wurst said after the game of his ace. “He’s had huge wins against huge ball clubs all season long and this was another one.”

Starting shortstop for St. Brendan Jose Carrera hit a hard line drive over the second baseman’s glove and into right field to start off the bottom of the first for the Sabres.

The hit sparked St. Brendan’s home crowd, who, the way the stands are setup, are right on top of the field and they got loud quick. Their energy transferred to the dugout and the atmosphere as a whole may have shaken LaSalle’s starting pitcher Thomas just enough to help the Sabres score some runs.

Thomas walked two-batter Dayan Cubas and three-batter Sly Edwards to load the bases for the Sabres’ lefty cleanup batter Jerry Downs.

Downs lined a double down the left field line, knocking in two runs. DH Henry Knez then hit a sacrifice fly to bring in Edwards and the next two batters Thomas struck out swinging.

That was all the Sabres would get off Thomas as he settled in immediately after that inning. But that was all St. Brendan would need. Thomas only allowed three more hits the rest of the game and ended with four strikeouts – not to mention LaSalle’s only hit. Both pitchers went the distance.

For LaSalle this game was the epitome of their season, according to head coach Oscar Benitez, who was visibly upset after parting from his team’s final post-game huddle of the season.

“This game went exactly how the season went,” Benitez said. “We came close constantly, we lost 7 of the last 9 games by one run, but we can’t seem to get that one hit.”

Still LaSalle has a lot of hope for the future as they will be returning all but one senior next year.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Benitez said, “but the good thing about losing by one run is that is sticks in a player’s gut and it gives you something to work for all summer and fall. Let this pain stay there and it will teach them to really hate losing.”

For St. Brendan, they are looking forward to facing Gulliver Prep for the fourth time this season.

“We’ve got Gulliver in the next game, we’ve beat Gulliver two out of the three times we faced them this year,” Wurst said, “but tomorrow we have to get right back to work.”

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