After five innings of scoreless baseball between Archbishop McCarthy and Naples Barron Collier, the Cougars were poised to break the scoreless tie.
Right fielder Van Freischmidt led off the top of the sixth with a double, and Barron Collier had a chance to get on the board. But Archbishop McCarthy pitcher Andrew Ildefonso whirled around and picked Freischmidt off the base.
The Mavericks kept the Cougars off the board that inning and scored four runs in the bottom half of the frame, securing a 4-1 win over Barron Collier in the Class 5A state semifinals at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers on Tuesday.
“I think it was a huge momentum shift,” Archbishop McCarthy Aaron Voracek said. “I tell our guys: ‘Baseball is a game of momentum shifts, right?’ It’s like a heavyweight fight. It’s body blow, body blow, body blow and nobody sees the body blows, those momentum shifts. And then, all of a sudden, when you get the chance to throw the knockout punch, that’s what everybody sees — the one that you connect in the jaw. It was massive.”
Ildefonso and Barron Collier started Jacob Marlowe matched zeroes through the first five innings, with both teams’ defenses making key plays behind their starters.
“My dad says, ‘Stay cool as a pickle,’ ” said Ildefonso, who pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings. “I just like to stay calm, cool and collected out there. … I have my defense behind me. I pitch to contact.”
The Cougars had several scoring opportunities, leaving eight runners on base on Tuesday, including five runners who made it into scoring position through the first five innings.
“I thought we had control of the game and just couldn’t catch a break, couldn’t get the big hit that we needed to blow it open,” Barron Collier coach Charlie Maurer said. “We let them hang around, and in turn, they got the breaks.”
The Mavericks had opportunities, too, leaving runners in scoring position in the fourth and fifth innings. They finally broke through in the sixth inning. Shortstop Antonio Jimenez led off the inning with a double, and catcher Stefano Molaro drove him in with a double of his own.
“We’ve had a lot of close games all year, and it always seems to be me and Antonio getting up in that sixth inning, seventh inning, to get the job done,” Molaro said. “I told him if you get on, we’ll put this run across and we’ll finish this game next inning.”
The rally continued. Ildefonso singled, and left fielder Zaid Diaz drove Molaro in with a single. First baseman Jake Alfaro brought in two more runs with a bases-clearing triple.
McCarthy’s victory puts the Mavericks in the state title game for the first time since 2017 — the last year of the program’s vaunted dynasty, where they won seven state titles in eight years. They face Lynn Haven Mosley at 1 p.m. on Wednesday. Archbishop McCarthy beat Mosley in state title games in 2013, 2015 and 2016.
“I try and schedule the toughest schedule we can put on paper on our end because that’s what I want,” Voracek said. “I want to prep us for this.”
