After an inning and a half in the Class 4A state semifinals, North Broward Prep trailed Dunedin, 5-0. After two complete innings, the Eagles were down by three.
They tied the game in the seventh and tied it a second time in the eighth. That’s where the score remained when Josh Steidl stepped to the plate with a runner on second.
The senior first baseman hammered a ball to right field, and the next thing he saw was his teammates sprinting out of the dugout. Steidl’s game-winning double earned North Broward Prep a spot in its first-ever title game with a 7-6 win over Dunedin at Hammond Stadium Fort Myers on Monday.
“All I was trying to do was just sprint to second, and I saw all my teammates come out and absolutely destroy me,” Steidl said.
A few hours earlier, in the early innings of Monday’s game, a North Broward Prep celebration looked unlikely. Senior starter Shane Huntsberger struggled through two innings, giving up five runs. Eagles coach Brian Campbell turned to junior Yoel Tejada Jr., who pitched 6 1/3 innings in North Broward Prep’s regional final on Wednesday.
“He just threw a lot of pitches [five] days ago — more than he’s ever thrown,” Campbell said. “I didn’t want to use him unless it was an emergency, and it was an emergency. He said he was ready. I was trying to be more cautious than anything because I’m just trying to make sure to take care of him. But he wanted the ball.”
Tejada shut down the Falcons’ bats, pitching his first five innings without giving up a run.
“I trusted my team,” Tejada said. “As long as I did my job out there how I’ve been doing [it] the last few weeks, I knew my team was going to get my back.”
Tejada was right. After scoring two runs in the second inning, the Eagles missed some middle-inning opportunities. But in the sixth inning, catcher Dylan Runsdorf drove in a run with a single the cut the deficit to two. North Broward Prep still needed two runs in the bottom of the seventh to keep its season alive.
Tejada came up big at the plate in the seventh inning, driving in a run with a double. Pinch-runner David Schreibman replaced him at second and advanced to third on a wild pitch. The rally nearly ended prematurely when center fielder Ty Richman grounded the ball to shortstop, but Richman beat out the throw to first and allowed the tying run to score.
“They’re selfless,” Campbell said. “They want to win for each other, not for themselves. So he’s hustling down the line, not for Ty, but for the other 20 guys on the team. That’s the feeling. That’s what makes this group really special.”
Dunedin tried to halt the storybook finish, scoring a run on an eighth-inning single by Marcus Brodil. But North Broward Prep came back in the bottom half of the inning and tied the game on a single by senior Kobe Benson.
Tejada held the Falcons scoreless in the top half of the ninth inning. Jonah Diaz singled to start the bottom of the ninth and stole second, setting the stage of Steidl’s game-winning double.
The Eagles will play Citra North Marion in the Class 4A state championship game at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. North Marion beat Brooksville Nature Coast, 4-1, in their semifinal game on Monday afternoon.
“If any team deserves this, we do,” Steidl said. “We fight back. We’ve been working for nine months to make everything good. We left everything on the field today, and we need to go get a state championship tomorrow.”
