Pace Walks Off With 5-4 Win Over Archbishop McCarthy

When Leroy Garcia connected on his pitch, he didn’t even look back to see where the ball had gone until he was safely at first base.

What the Monsignor Pace sophomore saw when he finally looked back was all of his teammates charging out of the dugout and onto the field towards him in celebration.

To Garcia, it was the best feeling in the world.

The host Spartans came back for a thrilling 5-4, walk-off victory in the bottom of the eighth inning to hand rival Archbishop McCarthy its first loss of the season, in a game played at Spartans Field at Monsignor Pace in Opa-locka on Wednesday night.

“To come back and battle this way and never say die, it was a pretty fun and exciting game to be a part of,” said Spartans Manager Tom Duffin. “The only thing you can do is relate this one to a heavyweight championship bout, like in boxing. They swung and hit, we swung and hit, as far as landing blows. It was a tough one for anybody to lose.”

The two programs have always enjoyed this friendly rivalry, which has grown to pit two of the state’s best teams against one another every season.

The Spartans (10-3-1) have won six state titles overall, the last coming in 2006, and the team also went to the state Final Four last season. Meanwhile the Mavericks (11-1) have won three state titles in a row, and also came into Wednesday’s contest having shut out Pace in each of their past two meetings.

“We’ve dominated the past few years, but tonight they came to play,” Mavericks Manager Rich Bielski said. “Tom always does a good job of getting his team ready, but we gave it away with our errors. Every error that we made cost us. That’s what it came down to and I feel we really beat ourselves tonight.”

Anthony De La Cruz led off the bottom of the eighth inning by crushing the ball deep to right field and then racing around the bases to third after the ball got away from the fielder.

Although De La Cruz later admitted his mistake, when he saw Garcia connect he immediately raced home with his arms in the air in celebration.

Had the fielder made the play on the ball, De La Cruz would surely have been doubled off at third base instead of enjoying the thrill of crossing home with the winning run. But fortunately for him, the ball ricocheted free and both runners reached safely.

“They can yell at me all they want, we won!” De La Cruz joked afterwards. “I got up there thinking it was my last at-bat against McCarthy, and I was thinking you know my sophomore and junior year we did not beat them. So I just thought ‘come through’. And I did.”

Another senior who came up big for the Spartans was catcher Manuel Pazos, who lined a shot into right field with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning to score Benji Urra and force extra innings.

Urra opened the inning to reach after he was hit by a pitch; then advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt from Daniel Delgado and to third on a fielder’s choice groundout from Bryan Bermudez.

“There’s a lot of strategy involved,” Duffin said. “When to pull put the pitcher, when to leave them in, do you bunt? We executed tonight, and it was a hard-fought game by both teams.”

The Mavericks’ bats opened the game on fire, as the longball worked its magic to pull them out front early on.

Brandon Vicens connected on a high fastball and drove it deep over the right field fence for a solo home run with two outs in the top of the first inning, and catcher Micheal Hernandez put the bat on a ball that just kept carrying until it was out of the yard for a two-run home run in the top of the second that put McCarthy up 3-2.

After falling behind in the opening frame, the Spartans answered back in their first at bats in the bottom half of the first.

David Palenzuela lined a two-out single to left field, and Brandon Gomez followed by crushing the ball 360 feet over the left field fence for a two-run home run.

Gomez was 2-for-3 and Palenzuela went 2-for-4 on the day.

Senior Luis Deville came on in relief in the third inning before throwing 78 pitches over six scoreless innings to earn the victory. The right-hander scattered four hits and a pair of walks while striking out four.

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