Gulliver Avenges District Loss Against St. Brendan To Advance To Regional Final

The Gulliver Raiders and the St. Brendan Sabres have faced off four times this season. They split the regular-season series, but the Sabres were able to beat Gulliver for the 4A-16 District Championship two weeks ago. However, the Raiders were able to pull out the 3-0 win on Wednesday afternoon in the 4A regional semifinals.

The Raiders got on the scoreboard first with a home run in the top half of the third inning. Chris Chinea knocked a single to left field to get on base for Gulliver. Then with two outs, Christian Santisteban walked towards the plate with a challenge from one of the Raiders’ assistant coaches. The assistant coach told Santisteban that he wanted him to hit his pick-up truck that was parked way past the right-field fence. He stepped right up and answered by hitting the roof of his coach’s truck for a two-run home run and 2-0 lead.

“I was going to send Chinea to steal second, but I held him because I just had a feeling Santisteban was going to come up with a big hit for us,” Gulliver head coach Javier Rodriguez said. “He got a good pitch to hit and just crushed it.”

Santisteban finished the afternoon going 3-for-4 with two singles on top of his home-run blast to lead the way for Gulliver at the plate.

“‘It’s an important game and was just happy for the win and got the chance to get a good swing,” Santisteban said. “Our team came out serious and wasn’t messing around today, and it really paid off.”

The two-run lead was all Gulliver starter Ivan Pelaez needed. Pelaez pitched his second complete game shutout for the Raiders in the regional playoffs this season and struck out eight. He allowed only one hit to St. Brendan’s Sly Edwards early in the first inning, and for the second consecutive start, Pelaez did not allow a walk.

“I hadn’t pitched against St. Brendan all season, but I did a lot of studying and what they did to other pitchers and put that to work today,” Pelaez said. “I just kept pounding the strike zone and then getting the big home run helped and carried the momentum into the dugout.”

While Pelaez was dominant on the mound and didn’t need much help from the bats to secure the victory, the Raiders kept hacking and added another run in the fourth. Henry Hernandez added another run with his solo home run to left field to make it 3-0 after the fourth. Gulliver was hot at the plate and finished with 10 hits.

Coach Rodriguez was happy the mental toughness a couple of his players showed . Pelaez was one of these guys, who went out and gave a great performance while battling a fever. Eric Neitzel, who had a bizarre foul tip hit him in the forehead to lead the game off, stayed in the game and played great defense despite rolling his ankle, dislocating his shoulder, and get hit-by-pitch.

Although St. Brendan is now eliminated from the playoffs, head coach John Wurst is proud of the accomplishments his team and the seniors have been able to do this year. St. Brendan was the talk of the town for many weeks this season as they opened a lot of baseball fans’ eyes with their great season and well coached ball club. Coach Wurst is very eager to get right back in the swing of things with the underclassmen in the summer and fall ball to get ready for next season.

“We had a great year and this team was able to do things that have never been done in school history,” coach Wurst said. “We will bounce back, and get ready to go full force into next season.”

Because of the rain outs on Tuesday, Gulliver will have a quick turnaround and will face Monsignor Pace on Friday in the Regional Final. Pelaez will be unable to start the game for the Raiders so coach Rodriguez will look to some one else to step up for his team.

“We have two other guys that have been throwing good for us all year and they did real well against top opponents in a tournament in North Carolina earlier,” Rodriguez said. “So we aren’t afraid to put them out their in the big game.”

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