LaSalle, Miyares Stymie Gulliver To Advance

Tradition gets you only so far. The Gulliver Prep Raiders found that out the hard way Thursday as LaSalle defeated them 3-0 in a Class 4A regional quarterfinal played at St. Thomas University.

LaSalle won behind the dominant pitching of Sergio Miyares, who struck out eight and allowed three hits in a complete-game performance. The win puts the Royal Lions into a regional semifinal Tuesday against St. Brendan, which beat TERRA 7-3 on Thursday. It’s the farthest LaSalle (14-13) has advanced in the regional since 2007 when they fell in the regional final.

“When Sergio’s around the strike zone, he’s hard to hit,” LaSalle Manager Oscar Benitez said. “He dominates the strike zone. He’s electric. He’s hard to hit. He’s got a heavy ball. He moved the ball around the plate. He’s a big-game pitcher, and this is a big game and these are the kinds of games he feels comfortable with. He beat TERRA in the district championship and he won this game. It looks like he’s getting better every outing, so we are blessed to have him.”

Miyares (4-3) didn’t allow a hit until the top of the fourth, when he gave up a leadoff single to Henry Hernandez. It was one of only three hits for the game for Gulliver. Brandon Chinea and German Marcos had the other two.

“My offspeed wasn’t on very well throughout the game, but I was able to spot the fastball and keep the hitters uncomfortable and let my defense make some plays behind me. We made a lot of great plays on fly balls, a lot of great routes, a couple of key double plays in big innings to get out of jams and that helped. We also got a lot of great contributions from the bottom half of our lineup, which we haven’t had much this year.”

LaSalle took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second as Jordan Vazquez and Eric Valdes ripped back-to-back RBI singles, scoring Mike Cabezas and Francis Miyares.

“I knew there was a guy on second and third. He threw me two fastballs down the middle,” Vazquez said. “I really regret taking them. He threw me that one curve. I just sat back and hit it between the hole.”

The Royal Lions tacked on a run in the fifth as Nick Canino came in on a sacrifice fly.

Gulliver had its chances to score, getting two men on base in three separate innings. It’s that tenacity and fight-to-the-finish attitude that garners the Raiders respect.

Benitez had nothing but positives to say about Gulliver.

“Gulliver, my hat’s off to them. They’re a great ballclub. They’re well-coached. They have great talent. So we’re blessed to have this victory.”

Vasquez said his team was hoping to avenge an early season loss to Gulliver.

“Gulliver is a big opponent for us,” Vazquez said. “We’re always looking forward towards the game. We lost last time 5-3 and we were like ‘We know we gotta get them back. We know we’re going to beat them in regionals.’ And we came hard this time.”

The LaSalle team on the field Thursday was a much different one that the team that lost to Gulliver two months ago. The Royal Lions got better in all the main areas of the game.

“We’ve learned how to put away the batter through the pitching. We learned how to be disciplined at the plate,” Vasquez said. “We learned how to be smart on the basepaths. Those little things help us win games.”

Benitez said this season was a project that took its time.

“We started slow. It took us a little time to get our roles going. And also we had to change things up a little bit. We changed our lineup. We changed the way we coached them. But the truth is, basically what it comes down to is this team doesn’t want to go home. They just don’t want to go home. They don’t want to stop playing baseball. They love each other and they work hard, and it’s going to be hard to beat them because when you have 20 guys who feel like they are brothers to each other, it’s hard to beat them and eliminate them.”

With Thursday’s quarterfinal in the books, the Royal Lions can shift their attention to next Tuesday’s game with St. Brendan. LaSalle lost to St. Brendan 9-2 in their matchup March 11.

“We really look forward to playing St. Brendan because we really want to play them,” Vazquez said. “Coming into that game, we have to play with a full, 100 percent energy and see how that goes and keep going from there.”

While St. Brendan and LaSalle are getting ready for their matchp, the Raiders will be reflecting on this year’s early playoff exit by Gulliver’s standards. Gulliver (13-15) has been to the state tournament six times since 1998, and has lost in the first round of regionals just once during that time, in 2008.

“It’s just one of those days where he had his stuff and we didn’t,” Raiders Manager Javier Rodriguez said. “That’s how it is in high school playoffs, one-game elimination. Unfortunately, he had his stuff today. Every time we tried to get a hit or get a guy on, we hit it right at somebody or struck out,”

Rodriguez made a bold prediction Thursday.

“It was a tough year. I promise Gulliver is not going to have another year like this as long as I’m here. This isn’t going to happen. We’ve got some very good players coming up the pipeline and we’re going to be really strong in the future. I guarantee you that next year.”

Leave a comment using your facebook account!