Archbishop Carroll Tops Brito For Sixth Straight Win

Private “players-only” meetings don’t always work. But in the case of Archbishop Carroll, apparently it did.

After a rocky start to the 2022 season that saw the Bulldogs drop five of their first eight games, prompting that “meeting,” things have definitely turned around in the right direction.

The latest example was Tuesday afternoon when Carroll hosted Brito Miami Private on its home field and delivered with a 7-4 victory, marking the team’s sixth straight win since that 3-5 start and now stand at 9-5 on the season.

“We had a little private team meeting to try and figure a few things out and how we could do better and it worked because now we’re really playing well,” said AB Carroll leadoff hitter Michael Figueroa who enjoyed a big day going 3-for-4 at the plate with 2 RBIs. “It’s all about sacrificing yourself a little bit individually and putting the team first. Like just putting the ball in play more, moving runners into scoring position and playing some defense.”

As it turned out, Tuesday’s win for the Bulldogs turned out to be a microcosm of the season as they suffered through a rough top of the third. That when starting pitcher Anthony Capote gave up two hits, a walk and hit three more batters. When the dust had cleared, Brito had batted around and scored three runs to put Carroll in a 3-0 hole.

There were no team meetings in the middle of the third inning but the Bulldogs responded immediately as they came right back and plated five runs in the bottom of the inning to take control of the game.

After Gabriel Rebozo reached on an error at second to lead off the inning, Adrian Falcon doubled down the left field line to put runners on second and third and the rally was under way.

Figueroa then came up and grounded to third. The throw went home to try and cut down Rebozo trying to score but he slid under the tag and was safe. Alex Hoyo then singled to left scoring Falcon to make it 3-2. Two outs later, Capote stepped up to the plate and more than made up for his struggles on the mound in the top of the inning when he rocketed a sharp single to center scoring both runners, Capote advancing to second on the throw home. He then scored on an Alfredo Armeda bouncer up the middle and the five run rally was complete.

“The team meeting really consisted of us talking about not being as selfish,” said Hoyo who finished his day 2-for-4 with an RBI. “Trying to get our stats up – none of that anymore. More if you see someone on second, try to go the other way, move him over to third. Our lineup is all placed in a specific order for us to compete with other teams. He (pointing to Figueroa who comes up right before him) usually gets on, I usually move him over and our cleanup hitters do the rest. Nothing like six in a row so it’s working.”

Carroll added two more runs in the fourth when Figueroa and Hoyo, following a single and double, respectively, both scored on an Eduardo Perez single and Karlo Aguirre hit-by-pitch to pad the lead to 7-3.

Even though he got into a pair of jams in the fourth and fifth, Capote worked his way out of both of them before giving way to David Naime who recorded the final six outs to get the save. A two-out RBI single by Brito’s Jhonathan Bassett in the seventh only made the score look slightly closer.

“At the start of the season, they were all trying to play for themselves and not for each other and that’s just not the recipe for winning baseball games,” said Archbishop Carroll manager Servio Borges. “I told them if we don’t play like a team, we’ll never get where we want to be. Baseball is like a clock, everything has to be synchronized with nine players all pulling in the same direction. If you can learn to do that, you will have success on the field. It’s all about doing all of the little things, the A,B,C’s. Everybody, I don’t know why, wants to hit a home run these days. But that’s not baseball. Just put the ball in play and go from there.”

For Brito, a once proud program that hangs seven state championship banners at its field, the last coming in 2015, has fallen on hard times as Tuesday’s loss dropped the Panthers to 2-11 on the season.

“A very frustrating day, a very frustrating season,” said second year Brito manager Andy Herrera. “You don’t want to harp on injuries because that sounds like excuses but the truth is we’ve had six significant injuries this season including two big arms, our star center fielder, our first baseman and our shortstop is having arm issues. So it’s been tough because you’re putting guys out on the field who may not necessarily be ready to take the field We’re battling and trying to maneuver our way through the season – trying to figure out ways that we can fill in some holes and put the best guys out there. I don’t want to blame it on the young guys either because this is a learning process.”

With the knowledge that the Panthers dropped down to Class 2A and are in a very winnable region, Herrera remains optimistic that things could still come together down the stretch.

“It’s a big challenge trying to keep this thing together but we’re in a smaller district this year, playing smaller schools and we can compete,” said Herrera. “We have played a tough schedule this year, played a lot of tough teams so hopefully now when we get into our district tournament, we might be able to pull it together and surprise some people.”

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