Bizarre double play seals Mustangs platinum season
Round Rock – Great defense, solid pitching and offense has led Cy-Ranch to the biggest stag in high school baseball. Though the Mustangs couldn’t lay claim to the 17-5A District Title, they have something more valuable.
With Tigers on first and second base, Cy-Ranch reliever Jonathon Whitley’s pickoff throw down to second base sailed into center field. In that same moment, Cosol’s curtsey runner Ethan Townsend, who was on second base at the time, started toward third and for some unknown reason, returned to second with teammate Cody Hamilton trailing from first. That’s when centerfielder Corbin Martin fielded the ball and fired to second baseman Bryce Stark. Townsend ran into Stark, eliminating himself as a base runner for one out. Stark then threw to first base, doubling up Hamilton to end the game. In what, was likely to have runners on second and third, with one-out. Instead, the game changing play rendered a close to the season.
“We’ve been playing good defense all year,” added Cy-Ranch coach John Pope. That’s been one of our trade marks. Good pitching, good defense, and getting some timely hits, you can win many ball games like that. That’s kind of what we’ve been doing.”
Despite playing only three years of varsity baseball, Cy-Ranch (32-8) opened doors to several first time memories. In the playoffs for a first, sweeping its way through the Houston area, finishing an undefeated post season in what is been called, one of the toughest regions in the nation. The victory also marked the second time this decade a Cy-Fair ISD school has won the title. Cy-Fair completed a 27-game win streak with a 6-1 victory over Harlingen South in the 2007 title match.
On Saturday evening, sophomore centerfielder Corbin Martin who was the game’s MVP, hit a home run and had two game changing defensive plays, to help Cy-Ranch put the finishing touches on a dream season, by defeating A&M Consolidated, 4-1 in the Class 5A State Championship Game, for another first time memory.
With the victory, Cy-Ranch, the newest school in the Cy-Fair school district, caps a Cinderella season after its fourth year in existence and only third season of varsity play.
Martin sent a high inside fastball airborne into the lower seating level in left field to give Cy-Ranch a 3-1 lead in top of the second. He added two defensive gyms, a snow cone catch and assisted on a game ending double play.
Cy-Ranch centerfielder Corbin Martin said, “It was a fastball inside and I turned on it. (The homerun) I didn’t know if it was going over, so I just started running. Then I noticed it did. It feels good.
Cy-Ranch struck for a pair of early runs when shortstop Leon Bird reached on an error, moved to second on a balk and scored on Bryce Starks single. Starks scored on Smith’s sac fly, to give the Mustangs a 2-0 lead.
In the bottom of the first, the Tigers cut the lead in half. Followed by two singles, Turton’s run scoring sacrifice fly pulled A&M Consolidated within a run, 2-1.
“It was an exciting game all the way through,” Coach Pope said. A&M Consolidated gave us all we wanted, that’s for sure. Nevertheless, our kids found a way to win. We battled the whole game and we came out on top.
“If you put pressure on people, you force them to make plays. To me the worst thing you can do is strike out. If you ground out, a player has to make three plays to get you out. He has to field the ball, catch it, and throw over to first base to get you out. Anyway you put pressure on them, is a benefit to you”, said Pope.
Consol (29-12) struggled to find its groove throughout. Getting runners aboard seemed to be the easy part, but the keeping them, wasn’t so successful. In both the second and third, Mustangs pitcher Brosch erased two Tiger runners on pickoff moves. While on first base, Brosch caught Gabe Sager leaning towards second when threw over to first base for the out. Then Brosh teamed up with Bird to pickoff Logan Howell at second base when the shortstop slipped behind the runner at second base.
“We had good defense at the right time to get out some jams. Brosch had a couple of good pickoff moves. He pitched a great game. We work on our game every day for two hours. Our motto is hard work pays off,” said Martin.
In the fourth, Martin’s running, diving-catch, robbed Colby Turton of extra bases and kept the Tigers from mounting much. Shortstop Alec Paradowski lined a shot to Bird in the sixth, which had base hit written all over it before the leaping grab to keep the bases empty and continued Cosol’s frustration.