Juvier Powers Doral Past TERRA

It was a showdown of the third and fourth place teams of 6A-16 between the Doral Firebirds and the TERRA Wolves. The Firebirds used effective pitching and key hits to win 7-4 and put a stop to the Wolves four-game winning streak.

Many hitters let their first at-bat dictate the rest of the game, but that was not the case for Doral’s Alejandro Juvier. Juvier struck out looking in the first, but then put that at-bat behind him. Juvier went on to put on an “extra-base hit clinic”, ripping two RBI doubles, driving in three runs, before adding a towering home run to right-field with one out in the sixth inning to finish the day 3-for-4.

The slugger finished just a triple short of hitting for the cycle, but was modest about his big day at the plate.

“I wasn’t trying to do too much because you don’t have to really swing hard to hit the ball, so I came prepared,” said Juvier.

Juvier was not the only one punishing the baseball. The Wolves shortstop Yasser Santana had himself a day at the plate in going 3-for-3 with two singles, a two-out RBI double and a walk. But the heavy lifting at the plate was done by Alex Saavedra. The senior Saavedra went 2-for-3 with two home runs and a sac-fly bringing in three of the Wolves four runs while trying to keep his team in the game.

The bad luck for Wolves was that Saavedra only found the leadoff-man Santana on base once and drove him in with a sac-fly to left during the first inning to open up the scoreboard.

“I just try keeping them confident,” said Saavedra on his team playing from behind for the most part of the day. “I want them to continue playing throughout the game. I don’t want us to just give up now matter how many runs we are down early.”

It was a matchup that Doral Manager Steve Iglesias was confident his team could win against a good team, if they played their brand of baseball.

“We have been playing really good baseball coming into today, we just wanted to come out and play our game, our style of baseball,” said Iglesias. “We’ve had battles and tough games against them. I knew that if we came out and played our style of baseball we would come out with a victory. Coach Adames does a great job over there, that team never gives up, they always fight hard until the end and we knew we were going to do the same thing.”

The Wolves came into the game looking for their fifth straight win against a Firebirds squad coming off a loss against the Miami Brito Panthers. Andres Perez made his second start of the season for the Wolves against Kevin Alloroa, who was making his fifth start of the season for the Firebirds.

The Wolves started things off quickly in the first inning on Saavedra’s RBI. The Firebirds were quick to respond with an RBI single by Carlos Pino scoring courtesy runner Mauricio Gotera, who ran for catcher Chris Hernandez after a hit-by-pitch.

The Firebirds came back during the second to add three more runs on a one-out, two-run double against the right-field wall by Juvier to score Andy Hernandez and Chris Martinez. Chris Hernandez then added another run to the inning on a double to left-field. Once the Firebirds gained the lead, they never gave it back.

Saavedra connected for his first longball with a towering home run to right field in the third, making it a two-run game. Alloroa then recovered to retire the next three batters to leave the damage at a minimum. During the fourth inning Santana kept swinging the hot bat with a two-out RBI-double for his third hit of the game to cut the lead to one.

But the Firebirds kept the Wolves at a manageable distance from there. Juvier hit his second double of the game, plating Chris Martinez, and Gronlier followed with a two-out single to right scoring Juvier to open things back up.

TERRA Manager Hernan Adames called it a day for Perez after the fourth inning, bringing in Chris Cuba to start the fifth. Cuba retired the side in order keeping the Wolves within three runs.

The Wolves would not lay flat on their backs. During the seventh Saavedra launched his second home run of the day, but that was all the damage the Wolves could do.

It was a close game decided by the Firebirds situational-hitting, something the Wolves had the opportunity to do but could not capitalize.

“Our district games have been these type of games, close, one bad inning thats when it happens,” said Adames. Adames highlighted the fact on how the Firebirds were able to capitalize on his team’s mistakes and opportune moments with runners in scoring position, unlike the Wolves. “The things we have to stress the most from here on out is hitting with men in scoring position.”

Both teams move ahead participating in the Luis Brande Spring Break Classic. The Wolves look to bounce back against the Ferguson Falcons, while the Firebirds look for their second straight win against the Southridge Spartans.

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