Cabezas Leads Coral Gables To 8A-15 Finals

The Coral Gables baseball team has used a team idea through the season. The philosophy, inspired by manager Phillip Wisser, is a simple phrase that has brought the whole team together: “Hold the Rope.” According to Cavaliers starter Andrew Cabezas, it means to rely on teammates all the time. Cabezas said that when you are hanging from a cliff, the person you are going to rely on to hold the other side of that rope is a teammate.

On Wednesday, the Cavaliers trusted that philosophy. They came back from a three-run deficit to beat Braddock 5-3 in an entertaining ballgame played at Southwest.

Coral Gables (18-7) will face top-seeded Columbus in the district championship, after the Explorers beat Coral Park to also advance to the title contest.

Cabezas did his part to hold the rope, earning the win on the mound even despite some early struggles. The junior, whose fastball packs a punch, pitches with a wild windup that brings violence to his arm. His heater may not even be his best asset; his biggest weapon is a short slider that breaks into the plate, and when he feels he can command it for strikes it seems unhittable. After the third inning Cabezas was feeling it. He cruised for a complete game, striking out eight batters on 102 pitches.

The ballgame was started with a Bulldogs squad hungry to avenge the two season defeats against their rival. This time Braddock sent sophomore Orlando Ribalta to the mound to duel against Cabezas. The Bulldogs pitcher, who stands an imposing 6’8″, was lights out in the beginning of the ballgame and it took some time for the Cavaliers to adjust to his release point and velocity. Ribalta ended the night with 10 strikeouts, five of them in the first two innings.

“I absolutely trust my pitcher. Through the year we didn’t use some guys more, not for lack of trust but because we had such depth in the bullpen,” Bulldogs Manager Victor Montalvo said. “Because we had some injuries, we didn’t have that depth today. Orlando manned up. He pitched a great baseball game; he deserved to win it. Both pitchers were great.”

It was the Bulldogs (14-8) who put the first runs on the board. They were up by three going into the third frame, taking advantage of some early-game lapses by the Cavaliers.

“Cabezas might had been nervous at the beginning of the game,” Wisser said. “He is a veteran pitcher that has been throwing quite a bit, but again he definitely settled down. Overall he has been able to get outs and get out of jams. Today he was able to keep the game close. He finished strong and was a big reason of why we won today.”

The game was tightened after Rivalta gave up a run in the third inning and another on a home run by German Reyes in the fourth. The blast was followed by a pitch that created some stir and heated the temperature of the ballgame. Ryan Maya was hit in the nose by a loose ball that put him out the ballgame. The Cavaliers felt for their teammate and the momentum from then on seemed to shift to their side.

For the next few innings Rivalta and Cabezas dueled each other, putting zeroes on the scoreboard andsetting up the story for the bottom of the sixth. The inning seemed routinely enough, as Rivalta got the first out via strikes. The next batter, Elijah Eusebio, worked the count and took a walk to put the tying run on the bases. After a second out, Braddock didn’t want any part of Reyes on the batter box, so they put him on first base. It was a strategy that seemed obvious.

The force-out was now possible, and the ninth hitter Anthony Valdes was in for the injured Maya to bat. Valdes worked the count, fouling pitch after pitch, until he finally had the one he wanted, which he hit to left to score the tying run. Raymond Gonzalez then opened things up with another single that drove in two more.

Cabezas was the happiest man of all. He had his and the team’s destiny in his hand, and he wasn’t ready to give it up.

“We know we can make it work when things are not going our way in the beginning,” Cabezas said. “You have to believe that batter after batter they are going to do their job. They weren’t doing a good job at the beginning but in the end they ended up doing it.”

For Braddock, losing a game like this was hard. This was the third time in the season they lost to Gables, all of them by less than a handful of runs.

“Losing a game like this definitely hurts, especially after being up all game and then lose on a rally like that,” Bulldogs right fielder Joseph Lorie said. “After that fifth inning I thought we had it.”

Montalvo reminisced the season of the Bulldogs, and was thankful for all that his players provided throughout the year.

“We had a good year,” Montalvo said. “All around, we had some good runs even if we didn’t do it as far as we wanted to at the beginning of the year. But overall I am proud of my boys. I am proud of the way they hustled and never gave up. I am proud of the way they work hard every day.”

Like most managers, the hardest part of the loss was having to say goodbye to his seniors. Montalvo was no different, taking a moment to reflect on how much they mean to him.

“My seniors have been a great fun group to be around,” Montalvo said. “That is the sad part of the year. All these guys are going to have great baseball careers after this. They will be mad for a couple of days, but they will rebound from this.”

Wisser is now getting ready for his next opponent. Like his philosophy, his hope is that Gables plays a similar ballgame, helping each other, with aggressiveness and always having their backs covered.

“The biggest thing we can make out of a game like this is the fight. The competitiveness, the not quitting. Giving up an early run in the first inning, later two more, being down three runs and being able of staying in the game,” Wisser said. “We could have easily just fallen apart, but we battled. In the sixth inning, amazingly Anthony Valdez had the big hit to tie the game after being put in replacing the injured player. Our leadoff hitter Raymond Gonzalez, coming after a couple of rough games, had the final hit that drove in two runs. However, the biggest thing has to be that we never gave up.”

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