PHOENIX — South Mountain may have won the proverbial battle early Saturday afternoon, but the Cochise baseball team won the Western District Championship war and will make its second straight trip to the NJCAA Division I World Series in Grand Junction, Colo.
The Apaches lost 10-5 in the initial championship game against the Cougars on Saturday. But as the only previously unbeaten team in the tournament, Cochise had a second chance and came back to win the “if necessary” game 12-11 in the late afternoon on a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth by Darick Hall.
“Proud doesn’t do it justice,” said Cochise head coach Todd Inglehart. “It’s pretty surreal right now. From where we were in the middle of the season and after the midway point, kind of floundering, we have a lot of young guys and I didn’t know how they would respond. And obviously they responded.”
In the deciding game Saturday, Cochise took an early 4-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning, but the Cougars scored two in the second and tied it with two more in the third before taking a 7-4 lead in the fifth.
From there, Cochise played catchup.
South Mountain was leading 10-9 into the bottom of the eighth when Jayson Hicks launched a ball over the left field fence with Sean DeSoto on base to give Cochise a one-run lead. South Mountain scrounged one more run in the top of the ninth to tie it.
Zion Bell led off with a single for Cochise in the bottom of the ninth, Francisco Silva bunted Bell to second, and South Mountain walked Louis Boyd to get to Hall took the first pitch for a ball, then lined a curveball between first and second to score Bell, the winning run. “After Hicks hit that bomb, that got us all going,” Hall said. “For me to go up there and have a chance at the win, I knew I had to do it and I knew I was going to do it. All the pressure was on the pitcher. I just had to hit it.” Steve Naemark, who went all five innings in Friday’s run-rule win against South Mountain, started the late game for Cochise, going 4 1/3 innings and giving up six runs, three of them earned, on eight hits and a walk while striking out two. Josh Advocate went the last 4 2/3 for the win, giving up five runs on eight hits and two walks while striking out two. “We were thin on the mound and they’re so good offensively,” Inglehart said. “We asked Naemark to go out there and just give us whatever he could give us and, as usual, he did and kept us in the game, and Josh did an amazing job. It was a total game of attrition, who’s going to get the big hit, who’s going to hit last.” Cochise was the home team in both games. In the first game, South Mountain scored early, Cochise tied it in the fourth, but the Cougars regained the lead in the fifth and never looked back. Xavier Altamirano started on the mound in the first game, going the first six innings and giving up six runs on 10 hits and two walks while striking out one. David Estrada, who took the loss, came on in relief and gave up four runs, three of them earned, on six hits and a walk while striking out one. At the plate, Boyd was 2 for 5 with a home run, Nelson was 1 for 5 with a homer and Hall was 3 for 5 with a home run. “We kind of turned the corner and played really well the last three weeks of the regular season, really showed resilience,” Inglehart said. “It’s tough for (South Mountain) after beating us in the region championship to come back and have to play us for a game that means more than the region championship: a trip to the World Series.” In this year’s postseason, Cochise earned the fourth — and last — seed in the Region I tournament. The Apaches upset top-seeded Central Arizona with a sweep in the semifinals before getting swept by South Mountain in the finals. But since Region I was the host for this year’s Western District Championship, which rotates host sites between three regions each year, the top two teams from Region I earned a spot in the district tournament. “We’ve seen these guys so many times in the last two years,” Inglehart said of South Mountain. “The resiliency is what our program is about. Guys who are tough and play to the last play.” Cochise hits the road for Colorado on Tuesday. While the sophomores are itching at a chance to top last year’s third-place finish, most of the freshman-heavy Apaches will be playing in Grand Junction for the first time. “I can’t wait to get there,” Hicks said. “I just want to keep playing, keep winning.” Cochise opens play in the World Series bracket on Saturday, May 24, at 2 p.m. Arizona time against Blinn College of Texas. For more information about the JUCO World Series, visit jucogj.org.