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 – It was Tucson-North at the Arizona State Junior Baseball Tournament as two teams from the Old Pueblo battled in the winners bracket.
Sunnyside rallied from a 6-1 deficit to beat Flowing Wells 10-7 and is now just one game from the championship series.
The old cliché is that baseball is a game of inches and that may have been true on Thursday night.
Flowing Wells pitcher Carlos Gallego was trying to hold off Sunnyside in the seventh inning but was close to his pitch limit. He got leadoff batter Alain Lara to hit a pop-up foul but three Flowing Wells players descended on the ball, causing some confusion, and the ball hit off a glove and fell foul.
Lara fouled off four more pitches before eventually flying out to center, but that chased Gallego from the game.
Sunnyside got into the Flowing Wells bullpen and exploded for five runs in the inning thanks to four walks, two hits and an error.
With the bases loaded, Humberto Rodriguez and Adrian Shin drew RBI walks to score Emilio Medina and David Blasi to erase the Flowing Wells 6-5 lead.
A sacrifice fly attempt was dropped, allowing the third run to score, though the out was recorded at second thanks to a quick throw from the outfield.
Cesar Aguilar closed out the comeback with a two-run single.
Flowing Wells had one last chance in the bottom of the seventh. It loaded the bases thanks to a single and two walks, but a hard liner was caught, and in an attempt to double off the runner at first, the ball was thrown away.
The miscue allowed Cruz Marcial to score from third, but the runner at first was thrown out to end the game.
Ozzie Guadarrama pitched five innings in relief, holding Flowing Wells to just a single run over the final four innings. The lefty scattered three hits while striking out nine.
Early on it was all Flowing Wells.
After giving up a run in the top of the first, Flowing Wells struck for two runs in the bottom half of the inning. Flowing Wells’ first two runners reached base but were erased on a fielder’s choice and a failed hit-and-run attempt.
Gallego then drew a walk and Matthew Trujillo blasted a no-doubt home run to left center to put Flowing Wells up 2-1.
It added a run in the second on an Aaron Fontes single to left that scored Omar Rojas.
Flowing Wells made it 6-1 in the bottom of the third. A walk and two singles loaded the bases and Marcial drew the second walk of the inning to score Michael Osuna and put Flowing Wells up 4-1.
Gallego also walked to score Jose Toyos and Angel Sosa would score one batter later, thanks to a fielder’s choice.
Like they did two nights before, Sunnyside chipped away at the lead.
Guadarrama tripled in Andres Valenzuela to add a run in the fourth, then added two more in the fifth to climb within one.
Sunnyside will next face Litchfield Park in the winners’ bracket on Saturday. The victor will advance to the championship series, where they will only need to win one out of two games to claim the state title.
Flowing Wells dropped to the elimination bracket. It will face Queen Creek Friday at 6 p.m. and will need to win three games to advance to the championship series, where they would have to win two games in one night to claim the title.
“Our goal was to play on Saturday and we can still do that,” said Flowing Wells manager Gilbert Tovar. “It is a tougher road, but we can still win this thing.”
It was a tough defeat for Flowing Wells. Although all-star teams are technically different from regular season rosters, Flowing Wells brought all 13 of its players from their regular season team to All-Stars and it was their first loss of the season.
It was 10-0-2 in the regular season and had won its first four games of all-stars.
Nogales lost 6-5 in extra innings to Casa Grande, to end its stay at the state tournament. Down 4-2 in the sixth, Nogales scored two in the inning to tie the game but surrendered two in the top of the eighth to find themselves down to their final out.
It began the bottom of the eighth with a runner on second, as is the rule in Little League baseball, and saw Violeta Mendez-Barcelo reach when she was hit on the elbow. The next batter, Juan Garate singled home the lone run of the game.
A walk and a single loaded the bases. Casa Grande thwarted the comeback with a double play.
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