Pelaez, Big Fifth Inning Lift Gulliver Into Regional Semifinals

Although the game between Doral Academy and Gulliver Prep originally was scheduled for Thursday evening, the Florida High School Athletic Association allowed the Class 4A regional quarterfinal game to be played a day early in order for Doral to host the game on the campus of the University of Miami because Doral doesn’t have a home stadium.

The one fewer day of preparation had no effect on the starting pitchers as both were great from the first inning, but Gulliver took a commanding lead in the fifth for the 6-0 win.

“I’m looking forward to pitch a lot more games here (Mark Light Stadium),” said Gulliver starter Ivan Pelaez, a Miami Hurricane signee. “I had a good day today, and hopefully that can continue next year for UM.”

Pelaez had another great outing for the Raiders. He pitched a complete game shutout and limited Doral to just five baserunners without giving up a single walk. Pelaez also struck out six batters in the game.

“Today, I was just trying to get ahead in the count,” Pelaez said. “In pitching, it is key to get ahead because once you do that, you can rely on your defense, and my defense made a lot of plays tonight.”

Doral starter Mark Hernandez pitched outstanding throughout the night. Going into the fifth inning, Hernandez had allowed only one hit to the first hitter he faced. He got into a nice rhythm and struck out five hitters from the second through fourth innings.

The one hit Hernandez gave up early was to Gulliver’s shortstop Adrian Marin. Marin led off the game and laid down a beautiful bunt down the third-base line for a single. Ricky Eusebio then bunted Marin over to second base. With Chris Chinea up to bat for the Raiders, Marin advanced to third on a wild pitch. Chinea hit the ball back up the middle, but Hernandez fielded the ground ball, stared Marin down at third and threw to first to get the second out. Despite Hernandez looking Marin back to third, Marin took off toward home on the throw and slid in just before the tag to give Gulliver a 1-0 lead.

“Marin is a phenomenal baserunner,” Gulliver head coach Javier Rodriguez said. “He has so much speed that he can just make things happen.”

In the second inning, the Doral Firebirds began to make some noise with their bats. Christian Hernandez and Ryan Gronlier hit back-to-back singles with one out. But Pelaez answered right back with two quick outs to get out of the inning.

Gulliver wasn’t able to find another hit until the top half of the fifth when Joseph Dunand led the inning off with a line drive single to left field. After a walk, Ricardo Pozo executed a sacrifice bunt to perfection to get Dunand and Christian Santisteban into scoring position. Then another walk to Oscar Marchena loaded the bases for Marin.

This time, Marin smacked a hard-hit ball to the third baseman that got away for him and allowed two runs to come in for Gulliver. Next up was Eusebio, who sent a shot towards the second baseman that he was unable to handle and scored Marchena and the speedy Marin all the way from first base. Eusebio added to the Raiders’ lead after a number of wild pitches allowed him to score and make it 6-0.

Pelaez continued his strong performance with the big lead. He finished the game strong in the seventh as he was able to strike out the first two hitters and force the third into a routine ground ball to third base to end the game.

“We have played against three different number one ranked teams this year,” Rodriguez said. “That has really helped us get ready for this time of the year.”

Gulliver will now await to see who will advance between St. Brendan and LaSalle to see who they will play next week in the 4A regional semifinals.

“The game being moved up a day actually worked out great for us,” Rodriguez said. “Now we are able to get Pelaez a nice six-day rest before we play again, so he will be ready for Tuesday.”

Doral head coach Ernie Gonzalez made sure his team held its heads up high as it walked off the field Wednesday night. He made sure it knew and understood it had a lot to be proud of.

“We had a lot of fans, students and alumni from the Doral family to come out to the game today because of these kids and the accomplishments they made this season,” Gonzalez said. “I’m very proud of these kids as they battled to the very end, and the program has grown so much over the last three years for us.”

Gonzalez said the future looks very bright for the Doral Academy Firebirds. They will look upon a number of returning players as well as a good group of kids moving up from the junior varsity as they will come back to defend their district title next season.

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