'Cats claw back for 1-run win

WOODS CROSS — The Woods Cross baseball team is young. So young, and perhaps just naive enough, that the Wildcats had no idea that they were supposed to lose their game to Mountain Crest when they were trailing 9-1 after four innings.

If ignorance is bliss, then Woods Cross doesn't ever want to wise up. They thought that just because things weren't going their way that they could just keep playing hard and good things would happen.

They were right.

Woods Cross fought all the way back to within one run going into the bottom of the seventh inning. With two outs, a full count and two men in scoring position, Holdon Critchley nailed a pitch back up the middle for a two-run single and the game-clinching RBIs for an 11-10 come-from-behind win over the Mustangs.

"I was shaking I was so nervous," said Critchley. "I was OK after the first strike, but then after I watched the second and worked it full (the count), I didn't know what I was going to do. I just wanted to hit it hard and on the ground. I didn't want to hit it in the air. I got my pitch and after I saw it get past the second baseman, I just was so excited. It was exactly like every kid dreams about to get that game-winning hit."

It didn't appear that there would ever be a chance for a Wildcat to be a hero. Woods Cross started 6-foot-6 freshman Austin Bankowski on the mound, and his inexperience showed. He had moments of brilliance throwing in the mid-80s, but struggled to ever truly gain control. He walked two of the first three hitters and gave up a single to the other to load the bases with nobody out. He got out of the inning with only two runs on sacrifice flies to Kyle Andersen and Robert Garrett.

The Mustangs added four more runs in the second highlighted by a two-run single for Derek Leishman, and Garrett capped a three-run fourth inning with a two-RBI double.

Garrett shone at both the plate and on the mound for the first four innings. He allowed only one run through four, but things turned on him in the fifth. Two errors aided to a three-run inning that saw Critchley and Bankowski hit RBI singles. And things really snowballed in the sixth. Woods Cross batters drew five walks and capitalized on another error to score six runs on only one hit in the rally.

"I thought our guys showed a lot of patience and didn't press even though they were behind,' said coach Paul Ayala. "They never quit and didn't hang their heads. I think that maybe they realized that they could still do it."

Tanner Chadwick also played a huge role in the win for the Wildcats. He came in to pitch in the fourth inning and kept the Mustangs in check. He scattered five hits over the last four innings and gave up only one run to allow for the potential comeback.

E-mail: mblack@desnews.com

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