DENVER - Most baseball players won’t admit they let one play affect another. No so for Mountain Vista sophomore third baseman Tommy Clouthier.
With the game on the line in the second round of the Class 5A Championship Series on Friday at All City Field, Clouthier admitted he was thinking of the throw that got away moments early. He used that errant toss as motivation to deliver the winning single in a 6-5 victory against top-seeded Rampart, to keep the Golden Eagles unbeaten in the double-elimination event.
In the top of the seventh inning, Clouthier made a nice play on a sacrifice bunt attempt that was popped up by Rampart’s Tony Schicktanz. Clouthier then fired to first base in an attempt to double off a diving Alex Koehler, but the throw went wide and down the first-base line to allow Koehler to advance to third base. Rampart’s next batter, Zach Looney, singled to tie it a 5-5.
"It probably would have been better to not throw the ball, but it was an all-or-nothing play,” Clouthier said. "I was trying to make up for my error. I told my teammates to let me hit in that last inning and I would win it for us right there. I was able to just square up and put one through the right side.”
With two outs in the bottom of the seventh, Rampart starter Zane Watkins walked Tucker Cross and yielded a single to Brian Caggiano. Nick Whitbeck, who earned the save against Cherokee Trail in the Rams’ opener, entered to squelch the threat, but Clouthier sliced a 1-2 pitch into right field to plate Cross. Mountain Vista scored all of its runs with two outs.
“(Clouthier) hit a good pitch that last at-bat, so there was nothing we could do about that,” said Rampart’s Zach Looney, whose single had tied it in the top of the seventh. “We’ve had close games like that in the bottom of the seventh where it does roll our way; it just didn’t this time.”
The Rams (21-2) had pounded six consecutive hits to open the contest to race to a 4-0 advantage. Miguel Ortega and David Melander delivered run-scoring singles, while Austin Kaiser doubled to score two. Mountain Vista answered with five runs in the fifth, three coming on a bases-loaded double by Cross, before Caggiano homered to left field to make it 5-4.
Mountain Vista (19-4) rode the arm of Eric Anderson to beat Green Mountain 5-0 in its opener, and Anderson, who struck out 11 in that complete-game effort, also earned the victory by getting the final two outs against Rampart. The Golden Eagles will meet two-time defending champion Rocky Mountain (19-4) on Saturday. Rocky Mountain blanked Heritage 8-0, before beating Cherry Creek 6-1 on Friday.
Elsewhere around the state, Cheyenne Mountain and Mountain View remained unbeaten in the double-elimination Class 4A tournament, while the top two seeds in Class 3A – Eaton and Holy Family – also were unbeaten after Day 1.
In Class 2A, Front Range Christian punched its ticket to the state semifinals next weekend by upsetting Akron before outslugging Holyoke 18-11 in the quarterfinals. Holyoke had eliminated top-ranked Resurrection Christian earlier in the day.