Longtime local sports journalist Brad Allis provided this report of Flowing Wells 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 played for Flowing Wells. Brad has been the president of the Flowing Wells-Amphi Little League Board.
PAYSON – The clock struck midnight for Flowing Wells. Litchfield Park downed the team from Tucson, 6-1, eliminating Flowing Wells from the Arizona State Juniors Baseball Tournament here at Rumsey Park.
Litchfield Park, the defending state champion, will meet Sunnyside in the championship round Tuesday at 5 p.m. If Sunnyside wins, it advances to the West Regional at Bend, Ore., from July 23-31. If Sunnyside loses the game, the teams will play a final deciding game at 7:30 p.m.
For most of the postseason, Flowing Wells excelled with timely hitting and stellar defense. Both were absent on Monday.
Flowing Wells was held to just a pair of base hits, while committing three errors and failing to make several key plays that were its calling card all year.
“It just wasn’t our night,” said Flowing Wells manager Gilbert Tovar. “We had a great run, and we are disappointed to go home, but we finished third in the state. If you saw us at our first practice, you’d be surprised how far we came.”
Litchfield Park starter Dominic Cawthon was stellar on the mound, giving up just the two hits and a single earned run in six innings of work.
In the seventh, reliever Eli Cawthon got the final three Flowing Wells batters to fly out to right field.
Flowing Wells starter Matthew Trujillo kept his team in the game, going 6-plus innings, giving up just four earned runs.
Ironically enough, it was a spectacular play by a Litchfield Park fielder that saved the day and spelled doom for Flowing Wells.
With two outs in the sixth, Flowing Wells loaded the bases and Carlos Gallego sent a towering fly ball down the left field line.
Left fielder Nate Castillo sprinted to the line and stuck out his glove to make the difficult catch. Without the catch, Flowing Wells likely scores at least two runs and keeps the inning going.
Litchfield Park struck right away with two in the top of the first.
With two outs, a sharp grounder towards the bag was gathered in by the second baseman, but his momentum made the throw off line. That gave Litchfield new life. It struck with back-to-back hits to make it 2-0.
They added a pair of runs in the third and fifth, respectively.
Flowing Wells’ lone run came on a rare infield pop-fly tag-up. Dante Tovar singled to start the inning and advanced to third on an error that gave Flowing Wells runners on the corners. Jaden Goldsmith popped up in foul territory, which was caught by the first baseman. Tovar tagged and started to sprint for home.
He started back to third, when the first baseman threw to the base. Tovar reversed course, sprinted home and beat the tag.
This could mark the end of a special run by Gilbert Tovar’s squad.
In the past four seasons, he has guided Flowing Wells to two district championships, two state tournaments, a third district final, and the consolation championship.
“It has been great,” he said. “We have a special group of kids, and I can’t wait to see what they do when they go to high school.”
While this may be the end, Tovar did not rule out making a run at seniors next season if high school baseball permits.
Flowing Wells finished 4-2 at the state tournament, 6-2 in all-star play. The team remained intact from a regular season in which it went 10-0-2.
All 13 players will enter high school this fall. At least half the roster is slated to attend Flowing Wells High School, including four players who played on the Flowing Wells Junior High team that won the Northwest League championship.
The rest of the team will play at CDO, Tucson High and Desert View.
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