True North Flexes Its Might In Historic State Semifinal Win
The Titans storm the field to celebrate after winning the Class 2A state semifinal in their first-ever FHSAA Final Four appearance on Monday afternoon.
The True North Titans announced their brand of baseball with a mighty roar on Monday.
Playing in their first FHSAA state semifinal in its five-year program history, the Titans competed like a team of seasoned vets and hungry animals that know how to hunt for their dinner and to finish every bite. After jumping out to a big lead right away, and then enduring a long weather delay at the midway point of the game, True North traversed the storm for a 9-4 win over the Berkeley Prep Buccaneers, in a Class 2A semifinal at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers.
“It’s a heck of a way to win, especially with a little bit of adversity with that rain delay that was like two hours,” Titans Manager Adrian Nieto said. “The boys just had to get comfortable, and obviously don’t stay disconnected for too long, because we have to turn the switch on at any time now. The boys stayed good at staying locked in and engaged.”
The Titans (22-7) advance to Tuesday’s Class 2A state championship, with a chance to defy the odds in winning it all in their very first go at it. True North will take on the Trinity Christian Academy Conquerors (26-8) on Tuesday afternoon for the whole enchilada.
While the offense made the first loud noise, and kept banging the drum the entire way, it was the pitching from starter William Foss that was just as important to the victory. Foss took the team on his back and carried them into the seventh inning to earn the biggest win of his high school career, which was also his final start of his high school career.
Although his outing was interrupted by the weather delay, Foss was persistent in calling for the ball still and being allowed to return and finish the job.
“Foss was in my ear saying, ‘I’m not done yet’, but lucky for us it was a team effort,” Nieto said. “We’re lucky to have the pitching coaches that we have, Michael Tejera and Alain Soler, former Big Leaguers as well, and our trainer actually made the drive up as well and made sure that he stayed warm during all of it. Big, big props to Willie for wanting the ball. He wasn’t letting me say that you aren’t going back out there very easily.”
After lightning was detected in the area and the game was forced to pause, it was roughly two hours before the teams retook the field and began playing again. But Foss dedicated that time to a regiment intended to keep him warm and ready to go, and eventually he was given the green light to return to the mound.
“I just kept telling him that I have to have the ball and I’ve got to go back out there,” Foss said. “I talked to Coach, both my pitching coaches, and my trainer, who helped keep me warm. I would throw every fifteen or twenty minutes, lightly, and then I would go back and they said it was delayed again. I would throw, do all of my drills and then my trainer, Matt, he did some shoulder manuals on me and got me stretched out. So I was staying warm the whole time, staying hot and just getting ready to go. I was telling Nieto, ‘I promise you that I’m going to go out there and get the job done. You’ve got to give me the ball’, and thank you that he trusted in me and we got the job done as a team.”
Foss even did some throwing back in the stadium tunnel, certainly something he never could have expected he would find himself doing when he was preparing for this trip to the state tournament.
“Whatever it takes,” Foss recalled. “We’re in the state championship games, and I’ll do anything, and the team will do anything. If we had to use the tunnel, we used the tunnel. We used all the resources we had. It’s hard to see in there too; it’s pretty dark in there.”
The skies seemed dark to Berkeley Prep when he was on the mound as well, as Foss controlled his outing to hold the Buccaneers at bay. The right-hander went six-and-a-third innings and struck out six, scattering eight hits and a walk while allowing four runs, although most of that damage came in the seventh when Berkeley Prep made one last desperate charge to avoid defeat.
Senior Alex Diaz took the hill to close out the victory. The right-hander picked up the last two crucial outs, striking out the final batter swinging to close out the contest.
While Foss’ performance will always be an integral part of this story, the way the Titans burst out the gate offensively is what set the tone from the very first pitch. True North scored three runs in the top of the first inning to never trail in the contest. The team sent seven batters to the plate in the first, as it looked nothing like the usual timid opponent making its debut on the grand stage of the state Final Four.
“If you look back at about the last four weeks since Spring Break, our at bats have been from the get-go,” Nieto said. “Punch first, it’s as simple as that. Especially against a great team like Berkeley Prep; they are nationally-ranked and they have been on the national stage for a while now. If you hit them first then you let them know that you came to play. I think whoever punches first shows they are ready to go.”
It started right from the top, as lead-off hitter Kash Ojeda smacked a single to start the action.
“It was a great start by Kash,” Nieto said. “That is our spark-plug, and when he gets on base that sets up the table for Jayden Cedeno, for Matias Fischer and for Carlos Victorero. The key is being a tough 21 outs.”
The table set right away, the next batters began to feast. Cedeno singled to center, and Evan Alexander followed with an RBI single on a screamer that ate up the shortstop. Clean-up hitter Matias Fischer laid down a sacrifice bunt to advance the runners, and Victorero stroked a two-RBI double to left that drove in Cedeno and courtesy-runner Lukas Ollervides.
A big part of the Titans’ identity comes in their use of the bunt game. Every guy on the roster is ready, willing and able to bunt, even the cleanup batter with ducks on the pond.
“Now, it’s a given. I don’t even give signs sometimes,” Nieto said of the team’s approach to bunting. “I told these guys that one of the best teams I ever played against was the Kansas City Royals in 2015, and I’d be sitting in the dugout trying to pick up signs, and there were no signs. But that lets you know that each player knew their role, and when to do it and when not to do it. That’s basically what we’ve become. We’ve got guys who have been with the program for five years, so they know our identity and who we are as a team, and what we do. Nobody is too good or too big to lay a bunt down. You’ve got to defend and put pressure on it.”
Victorero was one of several Titans whom had multiple hits in the game, as True North piled up 16 hits overall. Victorero was 2-for-4 with a pair of RBI.
“I was just trying to come through in those 3-2 counts, see it deep and try to get a base hit,” Victorero said. “I didn’t hit it that well, but two-RBI singles are two-RBI singles, and it doesn’t show that it was a jam shot in the books.”
The Titans added another run in the fourth on a squeeze-bunt from Ojeda that drove in Michael Cuenca, and they led 4-1 when the action was disrupted by weather. They then reignited that spark from the onset of the game by busting out for five more runs in the top of the seventh that proved to be vital to the win.
True North enjoyed a massive amount of fan support in the stadium. Despite the lengthy delay, those faithful fans were back to sound the chorus to victory and motivate the team with their huge waves of support.
“Having that many people behind you and supporting you, it just makes you play more free. You know you have people who have your back, no matter what,” Victorero said. “Having that many people from our school come up to watch us play, that was just great.”
The Titans provided their fans one last firework show in the seventh. The first four batters all connected for base hits, as Alexander, Fischer and Victorero each singled to fill up all the bags with Titans. Cuenca lined a single to center that plated two base runners for the winning margin, and Danilo Bossano clubbed an RBI double to left, before also scoring off an error. Noah Gamboa was next with a double to left, and Ojeda drove him in with an RBI single that made it a 9-1 advantage.
Gamboa led all hitters by going 3-for-4, while Ojeda, Alexander, Fischer, Victorero, Cuenca and Bossano all had two hits apiece.
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