Perhaps the fact that the game started at an odd hour, 10 a.m., on Saturday (May 8) was a -reason for some unusual occurrences in the first round of the 6A Conference state tournament between top-seeded host Xavier Prep and No. 16 Yuma Cibola.
Despite the weirdness,
the Gators advanced to Tuesday’s (May 11) quarterfinals with an 8-1 victory at
Petznick Field. Xavier (16-2) will be back at Petznick to meet No. 8 seed
Phoenix Sandra Day O’Connor (13-7), which rallied for a 7-6 win over No. 9 Mesa
Desert Ridge. Cibola finished 14-5.
Of the seven
other teams remaining in the tournament, Xavier has won four (O’Connor, Phoenix
Sunnyslope, Mesa Red Mountain and Phoenix Pinnacle) and lost two (both to
Chandler Hamilton).
Against
Cicola, Xavier found itself trailing 1-0 after giving up a first-inning home
run. Xavier was called for leaving a base early on a couple of occasions.
Umpires
employed a seldom-used minutiae-like rule, calling Xavier pitcher Riley Flynn
for lifting her foot off the pitching rubber not one, not two, but three times
(pitchers must have at least one foot down to avoid a “hop’’), altering the
pitch count. And a ball that umpires had said left the yard for a Bridget
Donahey home run to lead off the third inning was changed to a ground-rule
double.
Donahey
managed to score anyway on a single by second baseman Meghan Schouten.
In the
fourth inning, Donahey had a sacrifice fly taken away when it was ruled that a
Xavier baserunner had left third base too soon to end the inning.
By then,
Xavier head coach Brad Downes had seen too much and apparently said too much.
The men in blue did not eject him, but banished him to the dugout for the rest
of the game (he coaches third base) while assistant Deryk Sexton took over
those duties.
“I guess you
could say they put me in timeout,’’ said Downes, who still was able to relay
voice signals to his defense from the dugout.
Xavier
widened the gap even more with a four-run fifth. Catcher Macy Lee slugged a
home run to start things off, another run scored on an error and two runs
scored on a single by Sydney Johnson.
Downes said
the ball was carrying a longer distance than everyone anticipated. Even on
pop-ups that soared much deeper. In the Cibola sixth, a hitter hit a two-out
popup that appeared Schouten would be able to handle with ease. It appeared she
froze on the play and the ball dropped into right field for a double. But there
was a reason for some confusion.
“You don’t
know some of these other teams that you hardly ever see (hitters) and the ball
is carrying,’’ Downes said. “I guess that would be on me. It was a deal when you think you see something that
you really don’t.’’
After giving
up the first-inning home run to Cibola’s
Madison Matthews, Flynn settled down and finished with a four-hitter and
12 strikeouts.
Downes
wasn’t necessarily concerned too much about the tournament seedings.
“We tried to
look at this (Cibola) as any other game,’’ he said. “We call this the “third
season.’ When you get to this point, you’ve gotta win four in a row (to win the
title). Every team out there is trying to beat you, and they can.’’
6A Conference first-round results
Saturday,
May 8
(Seedings in
parentheses)
Xavier Prep (1) 8, Yuma Cibola (16) 1; Phoenix Sandra
Day O’Connor (8) 7, Mesa Desert Ridge (9) 6; Phoenix Sunnyslope (5) 3, Chandler
Basha (12) 2; Phoenix Pinnacle (4) 10, Mesa Mountain View (13) 0, 5 innings;
Queen Creek (3) 7, Gilbert Perry (14) 1; Surprise Shadow Ridge (14) 1, Phoenix
Desert Vista (6) 0; Mesa Red Mountain (7) 6, Scottsdale Chaparral (10) 5;
Chandler Hamilton (2) 4, Tempe Corona del Sol (15) 0.
Quarterfinal schedule
Tuesday, May
11
All games,
4:05 p.m.
Sandra Day
O’ Connor at Xavier Prep
Sunnyslope
at Pinnacle
Shadow Ridge
at Queen Creek
Red Mountain
at Hamilton
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