Brito Cruises 14-2 To Win Class 2A State Title

State Championship Photo Gallery

Having arrived at the destination they have worked towards all season long, Miami Brito was not to be stopped. Even after a shaky start put the Panthers in an early deficit, there was no panic in any of the players or coaches. The team was here for a reason and they all knew this was their time.

Brito answered back in the bottom of the first, and then erupted with a big offensive day to pull away for a 14-2 victory over Seacrest Country Day in the Class 2A state championship. When the final out was recorded at jetBlue Park in Fort Myers Tuesday afternoon, Brito could once again call itself a state champion.

It is the program’s first state crown since beating Eagle’s View 4-3 in the 2006 Class 1A championship, and it is the program’s sixth overall state title.

“I’m very happy and this is what we’ve been working for all year,” Brito Manager Pedro Guerra said. “It was a goal that we had and we had five state championships, but technically we never had one in 2A. So that’s a new accomplishment as far as for the program.”

Things did not go according to desire to start off. The Stingrays (21-9) put two runners on base in the top of the first, and Tyler Lopes smacked a double to plate both runners for an early 2-0 edge. Brito freshman starter Hector Garcia struggled with his command, walking the next batter and falling into a 2-0 hole to Colin Breuer before the coaches made the decision to make a pitching change.

Right-hander Richard Nunez came on in relief and got two straight outs to escape the threat and keep things manageable. It would be all that Brito (21-8) would need.

“I knew that our pitcher was down and I went to him and told him that I know you are down, but we’ve got your back,” said Panthers cleanup hitter Mauricio Amaral. “I told him, ‘you’ve had our back all season and you were the pitcher that helped us out and got us here. It doesn’t matter; we’re going to get you now’. That’s what we did.”

The Panthers went right to work with their first swings. JC Millan led off with a double to right field and then moved to third base on a passed ball to get the Panthers dugout roaring with excitement and anticipation. Marco Bolano then drove him home on a fielder’s choice RBI on a chopper that rolled in front of the plate just far enough to allow Milan to slide under the tag from Stingrays catcher Erick Chavez off the throw from pitcher Josue Rivera.

This was just the start of things to come for the Panthers, as well as for Millan. The senior centerfielder had a huge day, going 3-for-4 with two doubles, a triple, two runs and three RBIs. Millan also reached on an error to get on base in all four of his trips to the plate.

“Coach talked to us and the whole season long every single first batter that comes up to hit gets on base, and that is the whole element to the game,” Millan said. “That first guy gets on base and he usually scores, and that’s when we get a lot of the runs in the game. I’ve been refocused since this was my last game of my senior year, and I’ve got to go out there and give them my all. If I do bad I can still say I gave it my all, and today came out to be a good day for me and I got a couple of hits in my opportunities.”

Brito scored four runs in the first for all the offense they would ultimately need. Savian Fernandez singled out of the three-hole to keep things going, and Amaral followed with a liner past third to push Bolano across the plate and tie things up. Laz Gonzalez had a sacrifice flyout to send Fernandez home, and Julio Gonzalez drove in Amaral on an RBI groundout.

“We had a rocky start, but it didn’t stop these guys,” Amaral said. “The guys were hungry from the beginning and I tried to pump these guys up as much as I could. That rocky start never put a doubt in my mind that we were going to win this game. We were going to come back no matter what and we were going to put on a show and win the state championship.”

Now backed with a lead, Nunez did his part to hold that advantage by tossing two more scoreless innings. Although the right-hander had seen little action on the mound all season long, when his team needed him and his number was called he was there to answer the bell. Nunez earned the victory after allowing a hit and recording three strikeouts in his two and two-third innings, throwing 33 pitches in all.

The coaching staff had planned to go to Nunez if necessary, even though none expected him to be needed as early as he was brought in. Nor did the club anticipate that they would be able to leave him in so long after throwing very few innings all year long.

“My coaches gave me an opportunity to help the team out and that’s what I did,” Nunez said. “I feel good because my coaches give me the confidence to go out in this big situation. It feels good to win and it feels better to have this family to win a state championship with.”

The Panthers erupted for a monster second inning to put the game well out of reach, sending 13 batters to the plate and scoring nine runs. Julio Gonzalez had a big RBI triple, Brian Jimenez and Laz Gonzalez had RBI singles, Bolano had a sac-fly RBI, and Amaral had another RBI double. Millan batted twice in the frame, driving in three runs with a double and a triple.

It was a great way to end an illustrious career for Millan, who is one of 10 seniors on the club who was taking part in their final high school game.

“I came here my sophomore year and we lost in the first game of districts,” said Millan. “This team hadn’t lost in the first game of districts in a long time, so everybody here that has been here knew we had to come back and fight. The next year we got closer and this year we took it all. It was our senior year and we had to give it all and we were able to win the state championship.”

To add some icing to the end result, Amaral connected for a monster home run over the Green Monster in left field in his final at-bat in the bottom of the third. The massive slugger admitted afterwards that he had been trying to in his previous trip to the plate, and it was something he was hoping to do.

“I was trying to do it since the previous at-bat,” Amaral said. “That one I just pulled it just a little bit too much. Then I got a breaking ball and I stayed through it and hit it back up the middle and settled for a base hit. But this next at-bat I went over to one of our assistant coaches and I said, ‘I’m going for it and I’m going to hit it out’. I put the barrel on it and I managed to hit it out.”

With the game well in control, the Panthers were able to substitute many younger backups into the game and let them have a chance to play in the big stage of a championship environment on an MLB field. Robert Hernandez, Michael Fanshawe, Louis Campanioni and Ariel Rocha all got an at-bat in the final frame, and Leandro Espinosa and Jose Velasquez Jr. each tossed a scoreless inning to end it.

Velasquez got the thrill of being the guy on the mound to end the contest, which brought his teammates rushing to tackle and mob him in a celebration pile on the hill. As a second-generation Brito player whose father Jose Sr. also won a state title during his Panthers career, the moment was made even more special by having his father in the stands watching.

There were many other former players on hand to watch and enjoy the game Tuesday, with numerous family connections within those dynamics. More than any other person, Assistant Coach Dave Fanshawe was the one who could best understand the thrill of the moment, and particularly what Jose Velasquez Jr. felt in being the guy to record the final out that sealed the championship victory. As a player on Brito’s last championship club back in 2006, Coach Fanshawe pitched three and-a-third relief innings to close out that title decision.

Now the former Panthers player was able to enjoy the thrill of winning one as a coach for the same program he has always been a part of.

“It’s pretty exciting and I don’t think it’s really set in yet that we’re state champs,” Coach Fanshawe said. “Honestly, it is a great accomplishment. I won it in Sarasota my senior year and we went out with a bang, and it is actually my first year as an Athletic Director. I think it’s a great accomplishment for us, for the school and for the coaching staff, and really for Miami-Dade. To bring a championship back down, we proved to everybody that baseball in South Florida is pretty strong.”

When Brito won on Monday to advance to the championship, the team reached out to its extended family to come and be a part of this special day. One such invitation was sent from Coach Fashawe to one of his former teammates and close friends, JC Ruiz.

“JC Ruiz is actually another guy who was with us in 2006 and he won it, and we graduated together,” Coach Fanshawe said. “He is like family to me, and when we clinched the regional final I actually gave him a call and told him ‘you’ve got to call off work man, and you’re coming out. I want you to come out with me’. Luckily, he was out here to experience this with me. I am just glad we got to spend this together.”

The road to this accomplishment was paved through a lot of hard work, and also intense preparation that came by playing some of the toughest teams in South Florida. Brito faced both the Class 8A and Class 7A state champions, South Dade and American, during the season, and also played against 6A state semifinalist Mater Academy.

“That’s how you want to develop. You want to prepare your kids for the stage like this and that’s the best way to do it,” said Assistant Coach Laz Fundora. “Sometimes you get coaches that are worried about the competition they play so they can be ranked, and that’s never been an issue for us. We worry about getting the kids the toughest competition so that when you get to this kind of scenario and when the playoffs come around, we’re way ahead of the competition. We’ve been prepared to play tough teams in tough games, so it makes it a lot easier.”

Brito has now won the seventh-most state titles in Florida state history. With its sixth state crown, the club moves into a tie with Monsignor Pace for the second-most in Miami-Dade history, trailing Westminster Christian’s 10 total state titles. Yet even with all of this championship success, their skipper has never lost track of what the main goal is for each team each and every season.

“This is our motto from day one, which is our main focus to prepare these kids to be able to succeed and play at the college level, and if they are talented enough, at the pro level,” said Guerra. “Everything else is pretty much brownie points. When you play the game, you play to win, so you definitely want to win. But our main focus as a program has always been to make sure these kids are well-prepared to succeed at the next level. Through that I guess the talent has developed that we get kids who are hungry and that want to win.”

The hunger to win a state crown has driven many teams from Miami-Dade this postseason. Brito is the third team from the county to win it all this year, joining South Dade and American, who both won states for the first time this past weekend.

“We talked about that on the way up actually, and 8A and 7A winning it put a little extra pressure on us to make sure we came and did the same. I think we did a fairly good job of that,” said Coach Fundora.

Knowing that many of their fellow peers have enjoyed the same thrills that they experienced on Tuesday only helped to add to the overall excitement for the Brito players. Especially knowing that they took the field against them all during the season, it only helped to strengthen that bond.

“It’s a real cool thing that we all accomplished what we were able to do,” Amaral said. “Yesterday when we came out to pregame we had a gentleman talking to us and he told us who had won. I knew that South Dade had won, but I didn’t know that American had also won. So then I told them, ‘we’re next; we’re going to do it. They represented from Miami and we’ve got to represent from Miami too, and go do what they did’. So we did that.”

Miami-Dade still has one more chance to add to this incredible 2014 playoff story. Wednesday afternoon Mater Academy will take its turn in a Class 6A state semifinal against Creekside. It is the Lions first appearance in the state Final Four.

“Go Mater,” said Coach Fanshawe.

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