Hialeah Stifles Goleman To Reach Semifinal Round

Nestor Cortes has been a dominant pitcher all season, and Friday, in the biggest game of the year so far, the Hialeah ace did not disappoint.

Cortes struck out 12 and allowed four hits as the Thoroughbreds won 6-1 to advance to a regional semifinal Tuesday against American.

“We faced a good quality lefty today,” Goleman’s manager Jose Lopez said about Hialeah’s starting pitcher Nestor Cortes. “He was just at the top of his game. Coming into the game we knew that if he was on, it was going to be really hard for us to beat them.”

Cortes, the senior ace who has won five out of the nine games he has started for the Thoroughbreds, maintained his composure throughout the game. Although there were times when Goleman had more than one player on base, he didn’t lose his cool.

“Nestor is just a baseball guy,” Hialeah Manager Johnathan Hernandez said. “We got that a lot here in Hialeah, but he’s just something special. On Wednesday, when we had the game postponed, he’s calling me at eight o’clock at night seeing if we can reschedule for a ten o’clock game.”

Hialeah’s pitching kept the game close until the end with Goleman only trailing behind by one run. It wasn’t until the seventh inning where Hialeah showed that it meant business with four runs to secure the victory and leave Goleman stunned.

“The guys are confident when Nestor’s on the mound and his pitch count is down, and we just showed up in the seventh innings,” Hernandez said. “We say hold the rope, who wants the last out? We’ve always told these guys it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”

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