T-bird baseball struggles to find wins

Aaron Dunton

It was an epic battle on March 4 as the Thunderbird baseball team took on the Eastern Arizona Gila Monsters. The game had good pitching, excellent hitting, and even some controversy before it was all said and done.

It took extra innings to determine a winner in this one. Mesa looked as if they had to momentum, but eventually ran out of gas, losing 6-5 to the Gila Monsters.

Mesa, now 9-14 on the season, did have a lot of bright spots in the game as the team showed the ability to come from behind in pressure situations.

Speed was surely to be Mesa’s biggest asset this year and today was no different.

Speedster second baseman Dominic Gamboa showed just how fast he was by stealing two bases on the day, including the game tying steal of home that had everyone stunned.

MCC came out slow as starting pitcher Conner Lewis had problems getting out of the first. He snuck out of the inning only giving up one run.

The second inning would be the same for Conner, but the outcome wouldn’t be different.

This time, Eastern tacked on two runs, putting the Gila Monsters up 3-0.

MCC showed some life in the bottom half of the inning as they put up two runs of their own, off a sac-fly by center fielder Rocco Cirelli and a wild pitch.

Tony Fagan would come in relief for Conner Lewis as he took over the pitching duties and he wouldn’t disappoint.

Fagan did not give up a hit for two innings and ended up pitching seven innings, only giving up three earned runs.

Trailing 5-2 in the fifth, Mesa knew they had to be aggressive.

Matt Schmidt started the bottom half of the inning off with a single. After a fly out, Mesa managed two straight walks, loading the bases for outfielder Tyler Berg.

Berg would battle through the at-bat before converting an rbi single that brought in a run.

However, the rally would end with a double play and only one run.

The bottom of the sixth would produce the same situation for the team after Eastern once again walked the bases loaded.

Robert Torres gave the team an RBI sac-fly putting MCC down only one.

It was then that Gamboa came through big with the stolen base from third to home.
There was a scoreless seventh, putting the game into extra innings.

MCC failed to score in the eighth and Eastern capitalized with a run in the top half of the ninth.

MCC had one more chance in the bottom of the ninth, but was retired in order, ending the game.

  • Mesa Legend Staff

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

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