Mater Academy Extends Winning Streak To 12 Games

It’s a bad habit with potentially dangerous results: Overlooking your opponent. Mater Academy learned its lesson from last year’s underestimations, and the new outlook this year has produced nothing but success on the field.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Mater Academy is overmatching opponents, putting up runs like nobody’s business and limiting teams to few if any of their own as it has outscored the competition 124-7 and won all 11 of its games coming into Thursday’s 6A-16 match-up against Westland Hialeah at Walker Park.

The Wildcats put up a good showing Thursday as they tried to become the first team this season to knock down the Lions, but as was the case in Mater’s previous 11 games, the opponent’s best just wasn’t good enough as Mater banged out 15 hits en route to a 9-3 win.

“I just think we’re really competitive. We play the game hard every time we come out here,” said junior Mike Mediavilla, who went 2-for-4 with two RBIs. “We don’t underestimate anybody. Last year, we underestimated HML, so this year, we just learned our lesson. Just come in on top of everybody no matter who it is. We’re striving for a better record than last year. We lost a couple of key players but we got them back. We’re got a lot of young guys working hard.”

Mater (12-0, 11-0 district) wasted no time going for another win Thursday as it put up three runs in the first inning as Willie Abreu, JC Escarra and Danny Reyes scored.

The Wildcats (6-7, 5-5 district) scored in the bottom of the inning as Frankie Morejon came in on Julio Fumero’s base hit.

Westland Hialeah starter Erik Gonzalez settled down after the rough first to hold the Lions more or less in check until the fourth when the Wildcats gave up three hits, including an RBI single by Abreu to score Deyvid Silva.

Mater added two more in the fifth. Silva’s sacrifice fly scored Escarra, and Reyes, who finished 2-for-4 with three runs and an RBI, crossed home with Aramis Garcia’s single. Garcia finished the game 3-for-4 with two RBIs.

Gionvanni Arriera scored on a wild pitch for Westland in the bottom of the inning.

Reyes scored his third run in the sixth, and Kevin Abraham also scored in the inning to extend the lead to 8-2.

Silva added a run in the top of the seventh before Javier Gonzalez hit a leadoff double and scored in the bottom of the inning.

What fans saw Thursday was a typical performance for the Lions, Coach Alfonso Otero said.

“We really work on the fundamentals. We really work on that and stress that during batting practice and it’s paid off. We’re getting good pitches to hit, we’re getting good hitter’s counts and our guys take advantage of the opportunities,” Otero said. “From the pitching standpoint, this is the second game where our staff as a group gives up three runs in a game. We haven’t given up four runs or more. That’s the strength of our team, the pitching. We’ve got the pitching, good defense and we get the timely hit. That’s a good recipe to win games.”

The Lions will put their undefeated record to the test next week in the Selective Recruiting Invitational. First up is Douglas at 1 p.m. Monday at Florida International University, followed by Hialeah Gardens at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Southwest, and then a game against host Southwest at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Mater went 4-1 in the tournament last year and is expecting to do at least as good.

“If our pitching does what it’s supposed to do, what they’ve been doing the past 12 games, and we hit and score runs, we should come out on top,” Otero said. “Right now, we’re very optimistic, and we’re just trying to win every game.”

Mediavilla is looking forward to the tournament as well.

“I think we’re going to see some good competition,” Mediavilla said. “We face three good teams. We’re not going to underestimate anybody. We’re just going to go for 3-0 and hopefully win the tournament. That’s our goal: Win the tournament.”

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