Columbus Continues Rolling With Win Over Southwest

The Columbus Explorers have made their way deep into the playoffs on several occasions over the past five years, only to have their postseason championship hopes dashed by Broward teams.

This year, however, something feels different with the Explorers. On Thursday, they continued their assault on Miami teams, when they took down Southwest 7-4, to run their record to 9-1.

“It was a good game today,” said Southwest Manager Mandy Pelaez. “Scoreless through three innings, and then they were able to open it up there a bit in the fourth. They are always going to be one of the teams to beat, and today they were just a little bit better than us.”

Columbus’ Jonny Perez and the Eagles’ Tyler Villamor locked up in a pitchers duel to start the game. Both navigated their way through three scoreless innings to to start the game.

In the fourth, Columbus’ offense, which has been putting up big numbers all season, broke through for four runs. A walk, a single, and an RBI base hit by Maximus Alvarez got the scoring started for the Explorers.

After an RBI walk, Alec Cruz made the score 4-0 with a two-RBI single.

Southwest, however, would not go quietly. In the top of the fifth, the Eagles answered with three runs of their own. RBI hits by Eduan Negrin and Orisjoe Valdes cut the lead to 4-2. By the end of the inning, Southwest had pulled within one, at 4-3.

A Robbie Oyarzun sacrifice fly extended the lead to 5-3. In the sixth, Columbus added two more with a Juan Jacome sacrifice fly, and a Diaz single.

From there, reliever Dayan Viciedo closed out the Eagles, allowing only a run in the seventh in his 2.2 innings of work.

“We have to do a little better job of game management,” said Pelaez. “We had some walks that cost us today, and overall, we just havent found the consistency that we need. We are confident that we will clean it up and be better down the stretch. Columbus is one of the teams we will have to beat to get where we want to go, and hopefully we will see them again.”

The Eagles are now 4-5 on the season.

As for Columbus, they have already exorcised some of their demons of the past few previous seasons. The Explorers were taken out of the playoffs the past two seasons by West Broward, and the three seasons before that, by five-time 7A state champion Douglas.

This year has told a different story. Columbus has beaten both West Broward and Douglas, in what has to serve as confidence-boosting wins against teams they likely will see again in a couple months.

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