Mesa Baseball Secures Home-Field Advantage With Win Saturday vs Glendale, 10-4 Final
Mesa, AZ - There were many different formulas of how the Region I / ACCAC DII playoffs could shape out depending on the results of Saturday's final regular season games. Mesa only had one formula and that was to just win. They did that against the Glendale Gauchos with a 10-4 victory at MCC, securing at least one round of the playoffs on their home turf.
The T-Birds brought their bats to the yard Saturday as they collected 14 total hits, with Corey Chaplin and Luke Patty each going 4-4 to go along with Connor Denning's 4-5 day, who came just a double shy of the cycle.
It was Denning who started the scoring for Mesa in the second inning, as he connected on his fifth homerun of the season, a three-run shot to left field that gave Mesa a 3-2 at that point. In the fourth inning, it was a triple by Denning that scored Corey Chaplin from first base, tying the game back up at four. Luke Patty then singled in Denning to make it a 5-4 game.
In the fifth inning, a Corey Chaplin double to left field scored Greg Student to make it a 6-4 game. In the sixth inning, following two straight singles, Taylor Darden singled home a run to push the Mesa lead to 7-4. Two batters later and with two outs, Greg Student singled home both Luke Patty and Taylor Darden, making it a 9-4 game. The final run for Mesa was scored by Corey Chaplin, who scored on a double-steal in the seventh inning.
Out of the 10 runs scored for Mesa, eight of those runs scored with two outs in the inning.
On the mound, Cody Tucker started for Mesa and did well til the fourth inning when control issues forced Head Coach Tony Cirelli to bring in Tommy Garcia. Entering the game with the bases loaded and one out, Garcia struck out the final two batters of the inning to get out of the jam. Tucker finished 4.1 innings, allowing five hits, four runs, none earned. Garcia earned the win as he went 3.2 innings, allowing just one hit and striking out six. Erubiel Franco finalized the ninth inning for Mesa, collecting two strikeouts.
Depending on the final results of the Gateway-CGCC game tonight and the double-header between Scottsdale and Arizona Western down in Yuma will determine the final seedings for the Region I / ACCAC DII tournament that begins the first weekend of May. Results will be posted by Sunday, April 28th.