After an intentional walk to load the bases, down by one run to Canyon in the top of the seventh inning, West Ranch’s Garrett Monheim stepped to the plate.
“I was really just thinking about the guys that were on base,” Monheim said about his last at bat. “Vinny (Vincent Rojas) set us up in that great position to get those runners on base and I was just thinking about moving them up and scoring that run at the moment.”
With one swift swing of his bat he did just that, bringing in the runners on base. Two to be exact, putting the Wildcats up by one. The Wildcats ultimately won 12-10.
“He deserved it,” said fellow Wildcat Will Chambers. “He’s been really grinding and working and trying to get extra time in the cages and stuff. You know, he hasn’t started all of the games but he comes up huge for us and that says a lot about him to be a guy that when we don’t have everyone he goes and does what he can.
In an up-and-down game, West Ranch (15-8 overall, 7-3 in Foothill League) found itself up 4-2 in the middle of the third inning, but by the end of the inning they found themselves down 10-4 to the Cowboys.
In the fourth Canyon (12-10, 4-6) found themselves in a good position as Conrad Meza walked into the batter’s’ box with the bases loaded. Hitting an RBI triple, Meza started the Cowboy rally by bringing in three runs to put the Cowboys ahead, 5-4.
Forcing two pitching changes in the inning, the Cowboys weren’t finished as they scored another five runs with RBIs by Aydyn Litz, Noah Blythe, Cebastian Arriaga (2 runs) and Steven Cornell. In a wild change of events the Cowboys led 10-4 after three.
Eager to hit, Chambers (3-for-5 with three RBIs) stepped to the plate and hit one of his three singles to bring in a run for the Wildcats. Behind Chambers’ RBI, Nikko Clarke hit a single that brought in two and Ryan Farr connected for double that also brought in two.
“I felt good,” Chambers said about his hitting on the day. “Guys were getting on making it easy on me so my job was pretty easy.”
The Wildcats narrowed the Cowboys lead to 10-9.
Thanks to some good pitching and stout defense, both teams didn’t allow a run until the seventh where the Wildcats scored three runs on Monheim’s two-run RBI single and an error by the Cowboys to bring in the last and final run for the Wildcats.
“We have to finish,” said Canyon head coach Drew Peterson. “Obviously when we scored all those runs in the third, you got to come up and throw zeros. On the other side, we have to score more runs, we can’t get complacent and be happy with ten runs we have to keep tacting it on.
“But I thought that we competed well, that’s one thing that I was happy with. We competed with one of the best ball clubs in league, but to win you have to finish and we didn’t do that today.”
Both teams get one more crack at each other as they will face off at West Ranch on Friday with first pitch set for 3:30 p.m.
