Liberty baseball team comes up just short at Tahquitz

By Paige Mendez, Correspondent

The Liberty High School baseball team ended the regular season with an 8-6 loss at Tahquitz Friday afternoon.

The Bison started out strong with a single from leadoff batter Luis De La Riva. Landon Spicer hit a single three batters later that moved De La Riva to third base, and both were brought home on a double from Riley Vogt. DiAndrew Anderson hit a line drive single to center field two at-bats after that to bring two runners in and Liberty had a 4-0 lead that lasted through the end of the second inning.

"Early in the game we had a lot of two-strike hits with runners on that kept the line moving for us, and that's what we want to see," said head coach Scott Montgomery. "I'm proud of our approach at the plate today overall."

At the beginning of the third inning, Liberty had tallied five hits -- four of which came on two-strike counts -- and four runs with one error, while the Titans had no runs on one hit and one error.

Tahquitz had an answer in the third with a rally that started before any outs. Two doubles and a single, topped off with a sacrifice fly, got them within one run by the end of the third. Liberty then brought Johnathan Garcia in from the bullpen to replace starting pitcher Cody Smith, who tallied two strikeouts, one walk and three earned runs.

Garcia held the Titans without any more runs in the fourth. He also had one of the two hits for the Bison in the next at-bats, a single to right field. That was followed by a single from Spicer again, but neither hit was converted to a run.

The Titans rallied in the next inning with four hits and five runs, challenging Garcia at the mound. He threw one out of that inning, then was subbed out by Andrew Ramos, who battled through the remaining hits with a pop-out to first base and a swinging strikeout to bail his team out of the inning. By then, however, they were down 8-4.

Montgomery said that flip in the lead was a result of many things -- most notably, his team's youth.

"We're taking the steps we need to be successful, but some of those are growing pains in our bullpen," said Montgomery. "Having guys step into a tough situation and be able to compete and throw strikes is part of that. We kind of lost the momentum there and walked a couple guys and lost the strike zone. To our guys' credit, though, they didn't give up."

Evan Gonzales hit a double in the next at-bat and was in perfect scoring position for De La Riva to bring him home, which he did with a fly ball to right field, moving the score to 8-5 before the bottom of the sixth.

Through that half-inning, pitcher Jonas Phipps threw two strikeouts and a flyout in just three batters to give his team one more chance at the plate.

Garcia showed up for his team again with a single to lead off the inning, followed by Spicer's third hit of the day -- a double to left field that put Garcia at third ready to score. Vogt then grounded out to third but got the RBI to bring his team within two. With two outs, Anderson walked, placing him -- the tying run -- at first while Spicer was at third. Austin Cholodenko took the plate and swung on a 1-1 pitch. He made contact with what looked like it would be a line drive base hit, but it was snagged out of the air by the Titans' second baseman to end the game.

Liberty totaled 12 hits in the game. De La Riva and Garcia tallied two hits each, while Gonzalez and Spicer had three apiece. Spicer, a junior who Montgomery says is locked in with a great eye at the plate, said he was just looking to help his team out.

"I saw a 2-2 count and told myself I could hit anything I see," Spicer said. "I was able to drive it down the line and keep my team alive. We were just unfortunate there at the very end."

Defensively, the Bison allowed nine hits total, eight of which were converted to runs, with six walks total and two errors.

As has been the case across the board for Liberty sports this year, teams without any seniors are competing in their first ever varsity season. While Montgomery said his team's youth is one of their biggest challenges, Spicer also notes that his team is exciting for that same reason.

"We're here for our first year of varsity, we're here to fight, compete and get better every day," said Spicer.

The Bison are 14-9 overall, going 9-6 in league.