Mesa Baseball fans thought it was safe to call it a day while leading the game 6-0 in the top of the sixth inning, but not too long after, Palomar answered back with a five run streak to finish out the sixth inning. Nevertheless, the Comets were unable to stop the Olympians who took the win in a fight to the finish.
The first inning started with a spark from Mesa’s catcher, Dillon Haupt, as he hit his first homerun of the season concreting the score at 6-0.
In the top of the second inning Palomar finally woke up and scored their first two runs. Then the gap in the score narrowed again as Palomar’s first basemen, Alfonso Casillas, hit a homerun in the top of the fifth with one runner on base. Outfielder, David Ring also followed with an RBI and bumped the score to 6-4
A bad throw to first base in the sixth inning resulted in a run, and a fumbled bunt by Mesa’s pitcher, Allen Townsend, let in another run for Palomar.
The game was tied at 6-6 and Townsend stated he was amazed at Palomar’s persistence.
“The first inning we put up six, and I thought the game was in hand, but they clawed back into it,” Townsend said.
Head Coach Kevin Hazlett was not happy with the errors and realized his team needed to step up if they wanted to win the game.
“Our starting pitcher Josh Maxwell was getting a little bit tired,” said Hazlett. “We made a couple of errors, and it kind of got away from us at that inning.”
Catcher Haupt felt the lack of focus from the team that allowed Palomar to creep back into the game.
“We had a couple of mental errors, and a couple of physical errors,” he said. “Palomar is a quality team, and we were behind them so we needed the win.”
The lack of focus continued throughout the next two innings and led to Palomar scoring three runs, leaving the score 6-9 by the bottom of the seventh inning.
After a disastrous sixth inning, Mesa overcame their defensive mistakes.
The bottom of the seventh inning looked similar to the sixth, but this time it was the Comets who committed a series of errors.
An overthrown ball to second, allowed Mesa to score two runs. The Olympians then used a sacrifice bunt to advance their runner, making the score 10-9.
Palomar’s last chance came in the bottom of the eighth, with two outs and their best hitter, Casillas, approaching the plate but Mesa decision to walk the batter proved successful in holding the Comets to nine runs.
“He’s one guy [Casillas] who you can’t let beat you. Being their best hitter, we couldn’t let him beat us. We had to give one of their other hitters a try,” said Townsend.
Coach Hazlett agreed with Townsend.
“There’s that guy in everybody’s line-up, and I’m not going to go home with him getting the base hit to beat us,” said Hazlett. “He’s their stud. He’s a good a hitter as anyone in the league, and I’m not going to go home knowing Casillas beat us.”
Mesa held the Comets through the end of the eighth and ended with a 10-9 victory.
“What I’m proud of the most is that our guys did a really good job of competing again once we got down by putting up the four runs which kept us ahead,” said Hazlett.