Longtime local sports journalist Brad Allis provided this report of Flowing Wells’ opening game in the Junior State Baseball Tournament. Allis is the host of the Wildcat Sports Report podcast and is the Senior Communications Specialist for Pima Association of Governments. His son Tyler plays for Flowing Wells. Brad has been the president of the Flowing Wells-Amphi Little League Board.
PAYSON – Flowing Wells held off a late Rio Vista rally to win 10-5 on Tuesday night, while Sunnyside had a successful 9-7 comeback victory over Nogales to set up an all-Tucson third-round matchup at the Arizona Junior Baseball Tournament at Rumsey Park.
Flowing Wells and Sunnyside will face each other Thursday night at 7. They are two of the final four teams left undefeated in the tournament. The winner will be one win away from the championship final.
Despite leading from the start, Flowing Wells did not put away the pesky squad from Phoenix’s westside until nearly 11:30 Tuesday night.
The game lasted over three hours and featured 10 pitchers, 24 walks and three hit batters.
“We are excited to play another Tucson team,” said Flowing Wells manager Gilbert Tovar. “However, we had to focus on today and it was a tough game against a good team.”
Leading 10-3 heading into the bottom of the seventh, Flowing Wells saw Rio Vista take advantage of five walks and a bloop single that fell between the second baseman and right fielder, to plate two runs and load the bases.
Omar Rojas Jr. came in with the bases juiced and needed just five pitches to get the strikeout and earn the save.
It took Flowing Wells just two batters to take the lead.
Angel Sosa drew a four-pitch walk, then stole second. Cruz Marcial doubled to center, scoring Sosa and took third when Rio Vista threw home. Marcial scored on a Carlos Gallego single, and the first baseman grabbed an extra base due to an error.
He took third on a wild pitch and made it 3-0 on a Matthew Trujillo infield single.
Gallego went 3 for 4 on the day with a pair of RBIs and two runs. Dante Tovar and Isaiah Sanchez added back-to-back singles and Jaiden Goldsmith walked to load the bases. Tovar scored on a fielder’s choice when Rojas hit a grounder to shortstop, who got the force at second.
Rio Vista answered with two runs of their own in the top of the first. Nikolai Kurec walked, and two batters later, he scored on an Isaiah Narvais double to the wall in center. He later scored on an outfield error to cut the lead in half.
Both teams went scoreless in the second but Flowing Wells added three more in the third.
Singles by Gallego and Tovar put two runners on and each advanced to scoring position on a passed ball.
Gallego then scored on a balk, while Tovar took third. Sanchez drew a walk, and with the runners on the corners, he stole second. Rio Vista opted to throw, but Sanchez got under the tag. While the ball was in the air Tovar broke for home and scored to make it 6-2.
Goldsmith and Rojas walked to load the bases, and Tyler Allis worked the count full before drawing an RBI walk. The leftfielder would draw another full-count, bases-loaded walk in the sixth for his second RBI.
A walk and a single put runners on the corners for Rio Vista, which attempted the steal, but Tovar gunned the runner out at second. That allowed Kurec to score when a minor collision between the would-be base stealer and Marcial prevented him from throwing home.
“We’ll trade an out for a run if we are up,” Gilbert Tovar admitted. “Ideally, we’d like to double them up. We have some good arms on this team.”
Both teams tried to manage their pitch counts and swapped out pitchers earlier than they might in a regular season game.
Trujillo got the start for Flowing Wells and earned the win, pitching just three innings but giving up a pair of hits and just two earned runs. He struck out six. Marcial came in and pitched three innings of shutout ball, striking out five more batters.
All told, Flowing Wells pitchers allowed just five hits, while striking out 12 batters.
Sunnyside found itself down 5-0 against Nogales after a half inning, but remained steadfast and battled back to earn the 9-7 lead.
They plated three in the top half of the first behind RBI singles by Ozzie Guadarrama, Emilio Medina and David Blasi.
Nogales went up 6-3 after two but the game swung Sunnyside’s way an inning later.
A pair of one-out walks and a subsequent steal put runners in scoring position for Alain Lara, who doubled to left, allowing Andres Valenzuela and Guadarrama to score.
One batter later, Lara scored on a Medina RBI single.
Sunnyside took the lead for good when Blasi singled to left and Lara scored from second.
Sunnyside added two more in the fifth and earned the win after surrendering just a single run the rest of the way.
Adrian Shin earned the win. The third pitcher used by Sunnyside, he went 5 2/3 innings, allowing just a single run, while striking out four.
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