Sunset Hangs On For District Win Over South Miami

The Sunset Knights hosted the South Miami Cobras in a District 8A-15 game Thursday, and the teams played like mirror images of one another in game that took the final moment to decide

The Knights managed to maintain their lead in the top of the seventh and come away with the 4-3 win.

“It was like playing ourselves,” Cobras Manager Denis Pujals said. “There are no easy games here. Any team can beat any other team.”

The Knights took the edge though early in the game, staying with a two-run lead in the first two innings while their starting senior pitcher, Austin Comesanas, stifled South Miami’s bats and left them scoreless in the first portion of the game.

The first inning of the game showed off Sunset’s team speed, when first batter Mike Paez stole third to get into scoring position after hitting a ground-rule double. Paez would then score after his childhood buddy, Michael Centeno, popped a sacrifice fly to drive him in. The two have been playing baseball together since they were 8 years old and together were able to score the first run of the game.

Comesanas kept their lead unrivaled in the early game, but was not alone, as Sunset’s fielding was what ebbed away runners and batters from attempting to score.

The Knights were able to score again in the second inning with the bottom of their lineup, which sparked Pujals’ choice to pull his starter early in the game and take out his senior Anthony Oliva, whose first play was a pick off on second.

Oliva quelled Sunset’s bats for the next two innings, which kept the game interesting after South Miami scored a run in the top of the third when Armani Medina hit a single to score in Ariel Medina.

Tension rose from both teams after a quiet fourth inning, where both pitchers took charge and did not allow a run to change the score. But the silence only lasted an inning when both teams matched each others runs in the fifth.

Although South Miami and Sunset played like the same team, Sunset was able to keep their early lead throughout the game because of fielding execution. South Miami made small mistakes that would in any other game go unnoticed, but because of the neck-to-neck action that took place in today’s game it added up and cost them the game.

“Today there were too many base running mistakes.” Pujals said about the outcome of the game. “We had a guy thrown out because he took a bad jump. Then we get another one thrown out of second base with no outs because of a lead off. So little things like that shot us in the foot.”

After another quiet inning, manager Armando Palaez decided to take out his “save monster” to conclude the game. It was Mike Paez, with smeared eye black running down to his cheeks, who put an end to this game in the seventh. Paez lived up to the nickname that the announcer gave to him by saving his third game today by striking three of the four batters that he faced.

“We try not to pitch him too much.” Palaez said. “But when the game is on the line, and we’re up, he is the closer for us.”

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