Baseball slips, still No. 4 playoff seed

Justin Caligari

The Thunderbirds baseball team played against Gateway Community College on April 21 as the baseball season neared its completion.Mesa got off to a good start containing the Gateway Geckos while they were up to bat, shutting them down allowing no runs in the first inning.

The Geckos, however, got on the scoreboard first by scoring a run during the second inning.

“No, (We) have to make routine plays,” said coach Cirelli when asked if he was happy with his team’s defensive performance.

“(Their) pitchers pitched good and made strikes, they did a nice job,” Cirelli said, discussing the Geckos successes against the Thunderbirds.

The Geckos struck again in the sixth inning, increasing Gateway’s lead to two.

At the bottom of the sixth inning, Mesa loaded the bases, but were unable to capitalize on the opportunity to take the momentum of the game away from Gateway.

“(We had) terrible, ridiculous, poor mental approach. We swung at the first pitch out of zone,” said Cirelli reacting to Mesa’s performance with the game on the line.

The Thunderbirds were unable to catch up with the Geckos as they finished the game with a 12-1 defeat.

“(We) played hard, (we) just didn’t make plays, and get hits, pretty simple,” said Cirelli, reflecting on his team’s effort throughout the game.

After the game, sophomore Eric Lopez expressed his disappointment and said “(We) just didn’t get the job done.”

“(We were) defeating ourselves with unnecessary throws and swinging at bad pitches with late timing. We didn’t wait on off speed pitches, and swung early. (I am) not happy, (we had) unnecessary throws. We didn’t field balls very cleanly,” said freshmen Kyle Harless.

“(I’m) always happy with the team’s effort. (We) always give 110 percent. (We’re) just not executing when we need to. (We) didn’t change the game, and (we)gave them momentum,” said sophomore Jerry Pajak.

  • Mesa Legend Staff

    These are archived stories from Mesa Legend editions before Fall 2018. See article for corresponding author.

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