Phoenix’s South Mountain, which has six standouts from Southern Arizona on its roster, won the first two games of the best-of-three series at Northern Oklahoma College-Enid to claim the NJCAA West District championship and advance to the JUCO Division II World Series.
South Mountain (46-16) defeated NOC-Enid 12-3 on Thursday and 7-4 on Friday for its second straight district title.
The Cougars will return to Enid to play in the World Series, which starts next Saturday at David Allen Memorial Ballpark.
In Friday’s victory, Tucson High graduate Gennaro Brito allowed five hits over 4 2/3 scoreless innings with two strikeouts and a walk.
Salpointe alum Izaiah Moraga pitched the last 1 1/3 innings to earn the save, his fourth of the season.
The other players from Southern Arizona with South Mountain are CDO’s Ernie Alvarez and Grant Young, and Nogales’ Denzel and Derek Montijo.
Bobby Pierce Jr. went 3 for 3 with two doubles, two runs, one RBI, one walk, and one stolen base in Friday’s win.
Nuri Todd and Bryan Lorenz had two hits apiece, with Todd posting a run and an RBI, and Lorenz adding a double and two RBIs.
With South Mountain as the designated home team, Pierce Jr. led off the bottom of the first with a double and scored on a sac fly from Aidan Murphy.
In the fourth, Liu Rodriguez Jr. plated Jack Meissner with a sac fly, and Todd delivered a two-out, RBI single that brought in Luke Hewes.
The Jets scored a run in the sixth to cut the lead to 3-1, but South Mountain got the run back immediately in their half of the frame when Alvarez scored on an error.
NOC-Enid cut the lead to 4-3 in the seventh, but Diego Rodriguez induced a flyout with the tying run on second to end the frame.
Alvarez then caught a runner stealing to end the eighth.
The Cougars posted three insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth. Todd led off the inning with a single and scored on an RBI double from Pierce Jr. He then scored on an RBI double from Lorenz, and Murphy later scored on a wild pitch.
