Late rallies end Thunderbirds season in a loss against Scottsdale Community College
A season that started with high expectations and excitement ended in shock and disbelief as the T-Birds baseball season came to an end in Glendale on May 7.
The young Mesa Community College pitching staff fell apart in the later innings, leading to a 20-11 loss against Scottsdale Community College.
The game started strong for the Thunderbirds as the bats came alive in the early innings, leading to an 11-2 lead heading into the later innings.
“We swung the bats really well. we hit balls right on the screws. So we really swung the bat, we had great at-bats,” said head baseball coach Tony Cirelli.
Strong starting pitching from freshman Mike Marshall held the Artichokes to only two runs in 6 innings.
But things only got uglier for the Thunderbirds pitching staff in the rest of the game as SCC hit the young MCC bullpen hard.
SCC put up a 4-run 7th inning and then an 11-run 8th inning. Finally, they came through with a 4-run 9th inning to put the Thunderbirds away.
Sophomore infielder Kasey Watts said that the latter half of the game really got away from their ball club, and it was a tough sight to see.
“I guess when it rains it pours. We had a steady lead there for a while, but you know, 11 runs in one inning. I don’t know what happened,” said Watts.
The sentiment is shared by Cirelli, who said that 2 out RBIs and clutch hitting by SCC was too much to handle for his pitching staff.
“One of the keys to winning ball games, when you look back… is two-out RBIs. I’ll give Scottsdale credit; that’s exactly what they did,” said Cirelli.
“It’s kind of hard to summarize everything,” he continued. “ You know, they learned a lot, they get a lot of good relationships. Hopefully, they become better baseball players.”
Its a harsh ending for an extremely young baseball team, a team that Watts hopes will learn from games and losses like this.
“I think this is going to be a huge game for the freshmen who are going to be sophomores next year,” said Watts. “They’re going to know what happened last year. And it’s unfortunate that the game ended up like that, but I do think it will help out with the team next year moving forward.”
The T-Birds finished the season with a 25-23 overall record. The team came into the year ranked second in the country.
