CORPUS CHRISTI — Let the games between No. 1 Moody and No. 2 Calallen begin. As quoted by the CC Caller Times.
The much anticipated Class 4A baseball playoff series between the top two Class 4A teams in the state will take place later this week, after Calallen outlasted No. 3 Lake Travis, 10-4 Saturday night in the third and decisive game of their best-of-3 Region IV-4A semifinal series at Wildcat Stadium. Lake Travis won Game 2 of the series, 7-3 Saturday afternoon, while Calallen took the opener, 5-3 Friday night in Austin.
The defending 4A state champion Wildcats (34-3 overall) will play the Trojans (34-2) for the Regional IV-4A championship later this week. Moody defeated Calallen, 7-4 in a non-district game at Whataburger Field earlier this season.
“This is a sweet victory and we’re happy to be where we’re at. Moody will be gunning for us and we’ll be gunning for them,” said Wildcats coach Steve Chapman, whose team didn’t even know if it would get to defend its state title until the UIL ruled unanimously Wednesday that a Calallen senior baseball player didn’t move from Riviera into the Calallen school district for athletic purposes. “We’re going to have to play well throughout (to beat them) because you can’t have any bad games when you're playing Moody.”
“We’re looking forward to playing them. It is one of the premier matchups in the state and so may the best team win and represents Region IV at the state tournament,” said Bryden McClure, who had three hits in the doubleheader Saturday and was one of 10 Wildcats seniors who graduated Saturday.
Calallen was pushed to the brink Saturday after Lake Travis (31-5) handed the Wildcats their first home loss in three years in Game 2 of the series.
The Wildcats responded by scoring four runs in both the first and fifth innings and they used senior left-handed pitcher and Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi signee Adam Hoelscher’s (4-0) strong effort to take the finale.
Hoelscher, who hadn’t pitched in 18 games and was given the game ball by his team afterward, went 4.1 innings, yielded four runs on three hits and had four key strikeouts. Relievers Nick Guinn and Jordan John combined to pitch the final 2.2 innings of the game for Calallen. John, the Wildcats’ ace who signed to play with the University of Oklahoma next season, pitched the last two innings and struck out three to close it out.
Calallen needed just two hits to take a 4-0 first-inning lead in Game 3. The Wildcats forged ahead when Jacob Hubert slid hard into second base on a fielder’s choice ground ball, which knocked down Cavaliers infielder Kevin Conroy on the play, allowing Matthew Garza (who was 2 for 3 in the game with a stolen base and three runs scored) to score. Dustin Vaughan (who was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded), Bryden McClure (who drew a bases loaded walk) and Hunter Whetsel (who had an infield single) also drove in runs for the Wildcats in the frame to stake them to lead.
Wyatt Mathisen drove in Roland Resendez on a fielder’s choice ground ball in the second inning to push Calallen’s lead to 5-0.
Lake Travis threatened in the bottom of that inning, as it loaded the bases with two outs before Hoelscher struck out the final batter of the frame on an offspeed pitch to get out of it.
“I was proud of our kids for the way they played tonight --- we had our opportunities,” Cavaliers coach Roy Kinnan said. “If we could have gotten one or two hits with the bases loaded tonight it could’ve been a different (game).”
Cohl Walla’s — who signed to play baseball next season with the University of Texas — third-inning sacrifice fly brought the Cavaliers within 5-1, before Hoelscher avoided further trouble by striking out the final batter of the frame to strand a runner on first base.
Hoelscher also stranded a runner on third base in the fourth inning by getting the final three batters of that frame on two strikeouts and a line out to the second baseman Garza.
The Wildcats added four unearned runs in the fifth inning to take a 9-1 lead. Garza tripled with two outs before scoring on a Lake Travis fielding error.
REGION IV-4A SEMIFINALS
GAME 3 OF THE SERIES
CALALLEN 10, LAKE TRAVIS 4
Calallen 410 040 1—10 6 1
Lake Travis 001 300 0—4 6 3
W Adam Hoelscher (4-0). L Brad Kuntz (5-2-1). 3B Calallen: Matthew Garza. HIGHLIGHTS: Calallen: Adam Hoelscher 4.1 IP, 1 ER, 4 K’s; Nick Ginn 0.2 IP, 2 K’s; Jordan John 2 IP, 3 K’s; Matthew Garza 2-3, 3B, 2R, SB; Jacob Hubert 1-5, R; Hunter Whetsel 1-4, RBI; Rob Zastryzny 1-3, R, RBI; Wyatt Mathisen R; Dustin Vaughan RBI; Bryden McClure RBI; Roland Resendez 1-5: Wyatt Mathisen 2 R. LT, Mason Keel 1-4, 2 RBI; Kody Gruber 1-3; Andy Holt 1-4, R; Cohl Walla R, SB, RBI; Wyatt Church 1-4, R; Kevin Conroy 1-2, SB, RBI; Grant Gibbs 1-2.
RECORDS - Calallen, Overall, 34-3. Lake Travis, 31-5.
GAME 2 OF THE SERIES
LAKE TRAVIS 7, CALALLEN 3 IF YOU ALL HAVE TWITTER TYPE IN MOODY BASEBALL FOR UPDATES OR DJTOMMYGUNN
Lake Travis 041 000 2—7 8 0
Calallen 020 010 0—3 7 2
W Cohl Walla (5-0). L Rob Zastryzny (9-3). 2B Calallen: Adam Hoelscher, Roland Resendez. LT: . 3B Calallen: . LT: . . HR Calallen: Kody Gruber. LT: Cohl Walla. HIGHLIGHTS: Calallen: Zastryzny 6.1 IP, 9 K’s; Bryden McClure 3-3, R, RBI; Brett Bell 1-3, RBI; Roland Resendez 1-3, 2B, RBI: Adam Hoelscher 1-3, 2B, R; Wyatt Mathisen 1-3; Collin Simpson R. LT, Walla 5 IP, 6 H, 2 K’s and 2-4, HR, R, RBI; Dylan Mendoza 2-3, R, SB, 2 RBI; Kody Gruber 1-3, 3 RBI; Grant Gibbs 1-3, R, SB; Wyatt Church 1-3, R; Andy Holt 1-4.
LET THE GAMES BEGIN I DEFINITELY WILL KEEP ALL OF YOU ALL POSTED. SAN ANTONIO — Many felt Moody High School’s baseball team wasn’t dealing with a full deck when its Region IV-4A semifinal series against Alamo Heights opened Thursday night.
As things turned out, the Trojans’ aces — along with a resounding display of hitting — trumped anything the Mules could offer.
The top-ranked 4A team in the state, the Trojans hammered the Mules in two five-inning ballgames Saturday at V.J. Keefe Memorial Stadium, winning the best-of-3 series 2-1. Moody posted an 11-0 rout in Game 2 before tagging a 12-0 defeat on the Mules, earning the slot in next week’s regional final, a much-anticipated showdown with second-ranked Calallen.
“We expected it. We definitely expected it,” Moody right fielder Rudy Flores, who drove in six runs in the two games, said of Saturday’s dominance. “We came out (Friday) for practice, and that’s what we were talking about. Treat it like every other game.”
The two whitewashings followed Moody’s lackluster, mistake-riddled 1-0 loss to the Mules in the series opener on Thursday in Robstown. It was a drastically different performance on Saturday, however.
The 34-2 Trojans combined for 22 hits in the ballgames and took advantage of nine errors by the befuddled Mules (27-7). No. 2 starter Andrew Cantu (14-0) tossed five innings of four-hit ball in Game 2. Moody’s No. 1, Justin Meza (14-1), the hard-luck Game 1 loser, Cantu and Ray Herrera teamed on a two-hit shutout in the series finale.
“We knew they were good. It’s not like we’re surprised how good they are. I’m a little bit surprised that we didn’t play better,” Mules coach Glynn Tschirthart said. “Obviously we didn’t handle the big stage at all. They got five on us in the first inning in both games. That’s huge on a day like this momentum-wise. You’ve got to play a perfect ballgame to stay in the game with them No. 1, and then to beat them you’ve got to get a couple of breaks, which we got down there Thursday night.”
There were no such breaks forthcoming for the Mules. Before Cantu even toed the rubber he had a 5-0 cushion, which increased to 7-0 after two and 10-0 after Flores’ three-run home run in the fourth off Will Nash.
Meza reaped the same benefits as the Trojans staked him to a 5-0 lead, and that margin grew to 10-0 after two innings.
“That’s my team. That’s the way they play,” Moody coach Corky Gallegos said. “It was odd what happened the other day. I brought it out in the open. I’m not going to hide anything about us missing signs.
“It proves that even really good teams try to take matters into their own hands,” Gallegos said. “Today, we were on the same page, we got all that straightened out. It goes to show what happens when we play as a team.”
Alamo Heights didn’t go with its ace pitcher in Game 2, instead starting the little-used Nash (1-1). Tschirthart was hoping to follow the Game 1 script in which he started another little-used hurler, Michael Almquist, who handcuffed the Trojans with an assortment of offspeed and breaking pitches. Instead, Nash lasted one inning plus one batter, allowing five hits and six runs.
“Oh yeah, that’s what they were trying to do. They were trying to find our weakness and they thought that was our weakness,” Flores said. “But we just had a bad game the other night, it wasn’t a weakness. It was just something to build upon.”
Moody built quickly, leaving Tschirthart to wonder if his decision to hold ace Luke Maloy (13-2) until Game 3. In 3.2 innings, Maloy was lit up for 11 runs on 10 hits, three by Moody’s No. 9 batter A.J. Longoria, who drove in three runs.
“Who can say? I’m going to stay up late tonight second guessing myself on it,” Tschirthart said. “All I can say is we went into it trying to do the best thing for our kids to try and win the series, and it just didn’t work out today.”
Conversely, everything worked for the Trojans, who regained their dominant swagger.
“In baseball, you can throw all that stuff out. It’s just what kind of day you’re going to have,” Gallegos said. “The other day I sensed early we were hitting shots and they were making plays, they were hit right at people. Here we were playing for one run and that type of thing.
“Tomorrow’s a different day. Today’s a different day. I told them today I’m not going to take the bat out of their hands,” Gallegos said. “They’re going to come out swinging and do what they do best. They did it. We just cleaned the slate of last game and turned them loose again.”
REGION IV4A SEMIFINALS
(Best-of-3 series)
Game 2
Moody 11, Alamo Heights 0, 5 inn.
Moody 520 31—11 10 2
AH 000 00—0 4 4
Game called because of 10-run rule.
Andrew Cantu and Marcus Villanueva. Will Nash, Preston Newton (2) and Chris Bennert, Carl Stephens (5). W Cantu (14-0). L Nash (1-1). HR Moody, Rudy Flores (9).
Highlights Moody, Rudy Flores 2-4, 2-run HR, 4RBI; Justin Meza 2RBI; Gerardo Gutierrez SF; Justin Perales 2-3, RBI 2B; Christian Garza-Gallegos 2-3, 2B; Raymond Mungia RBI; Cantu 6Ks. AH, Luke Campbell 2-2.
Game 3
Moody 12, Alamo Heights 0, 5 inn.
Moody 551 10—12 12 1
AH 000 00—0 2 5
Game called because of 10-run rule.
Justin Meza, Andrew Cantu (3), Ray Herrera (4) and Marcus Villanueva. Luke Maloy, Adrian Nadeau (4) and Chris Bennert. W Meza (14-1). L Maloy (13-2). HR Moody, Christian Garza-Gallegos (1). Records Moody 34-2, AH 27-7.
Highlights Moody, Gallegos 2-2, solo HR, 2RBI; Rudy Flores 2-4, 2B, 2RBI; Michael Franco RBI; Justin Perales RBI; A.J. Longoria 3-3, 2B, 3RBI; Randy Rodriguez RBI; Chris Garza 2B.
