Shot at Class 7A Final Four on the line Monday at Vero Beach
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The Harmony celebration continues -- the Longhorns won their Class 7A baseball regional semifinal, 10-6 over No. 1 seed Jupiter on the road Friday. PHOTO/KATIE WILLIAMS
After Harmony defeated Treasure Coast in a regional quarterfinal last week, DH Clayton Williams said the secret to the Longhorns season was that he and his teammates simply trusted each other and were having fun.
That trust and fun continued on Friday night, when the short-handed Longhorns traveled to top-seeded Jupiter and pulled a massive 10-6 upset over the Warriors. Harmony (18-11) now moves on to face second-seeded Vero Beach (24-3) in a Class 7A, Region 3 Final at 7 p.m. Monday.
The win over Jupiter came on a night when Harmony saw its scheduled starter Evan Christ scratched with arm tightness before the game. Starting catcher Jose Scarfani missed the game after being hit on his throwing hand with a foul tip in the Treasure Coast game. Those injuries were on top of the fact that Harmony had lost three of its better players for the season in Cade Walter (ACL), Jose Oquendo (Shoulder) and Shawn Brabant (Shoulder).
“To be honest, last night was sort of a mess. Evan started warming up and said something did not feel right, so we were not going risk his arm by starting him. Alexavier Lebron cleared to play for the first time since breaking his thumb, so we started him but he couldn’t get out of the first inning,” Coach Heath Williams said. “On top of that, they were probably the best hitting team we faced all year. They had a funky ball park design where centerfield went to a point it was 464 feet to dead center. Had they been on a normal high school field, they probably would have had four home runs last night and game could have ended up quite differently.”
Despite pitching out of trouble all night, Harmony was doing its part offensively. Yathniel Matos went three for four and scored three runs and Isaiah Santiago went two for four with four RBI as Harmony put up five runs in the second and four in the fourth to take a 10-3 lead.
Still, it was anything but a safe margin. Ismeal Rivera, who pitched a solid 2.2 innings of relief was forced to exit the game with a hip flexor injury, forcing Williams to go to the pen in the seventh inning with seldom used pitchers. Jupiter would score two quick runs and would load the bases with just one out.
“We had to put Ashton Magorrian into the game to pitch earlier and I was basically out of outfielders,” Williams said. “We had called up freshman Logan Hogue from the junior varsity team and put him into left field. They had the bases loaded and their best hitter at the plate and he hit a bomb. Logan ran it down and caught it and we got the next batter on a ground out to win the game.”
Williams added that Hogue’s play has become the norm for his club. “With all the injuries, these players have simply adopted a ‘next man up’ attitude,” the veteran coach said. “When one of two of our top guys has a bad game, it just seems someone unexpected steps up and has a great game or makes the big play.”
Things will not get easier on Monday night against Vero Beach. The Indians (23-4) feature a lineup that is hitting .348 as a team, led by Jace Ramos (.395, 33 runs, 22 RBI), Finley Holmes (.464, 33 runs), and Chase Wilson (.450, 31 RBI and 13 extra base hits), They are averaging more than eight runs a game and have three outstanding pitchers, including ace Cody Morgan (10-1, 1.24 ERA) and Ashton Welmiller (4-0, 0.75 ERA). Sebastian Dimitroff is 5-1 with a 1.48 ERA and would also be available after pitching just four innings in a 15-0 run-rule win over Wellington on Friday night.
Although Harmony has been good offensively despite the rash of injuries, the Longhorns have a ton of questions about its pitching staff. The status of Christ, who was scheduled to start on Friday, is in doubt. Lebron, who was cleared after breaking his thumb, lasted only two-thirds of an inning against Jupiter and had trouble with the strike zone. The injury to Rivera is troublesome, leaving Williams trying to figure out who to pitch on Monday night.
On top of that, the FHSAA baseball schedule has put Harmony at a disadvantage. The Longhorns did not arrive back to its campus until after midnight Saturday morning. They cannot practice on Sunday and have to get on the bus after school on Monday and drive another 90 minutes to Vero Beach—leaving no time for preparations against an outstanding team. Meanwhile, Vero played a four-inning game at home on Friday and should be well rested for Monday’s regional championship game.
“We are a beat-up, exhausted team and we get what seems like zero turnaround time for the next game,” Williams said. “But here’s the thing, we’re playing with a lot of confidence now and who is to say we can’t win one more game against a team we should have no chance against? Our players were talking on the bus on the way home about who we were going to be able to pitch Monday night, but they were not worried. They were acting like it was no big deal.”
It is only the second time in school history that the Longhorns have reached a regional final and a win would put them in their first-ever Final Four next week in Ft. Myers.
