Archbishop Continues To Roll With 7-2 Win Over Chaminade

The Archbishop McCarthy high school baseball team has been on a roll lately, and on Thursday they continued their hot play. The Mavericks used a three run fifth to blow open a tight game, and then cruised to a 7-2 win over Chaminade Madonna.

Archbishop was led by a couple of their juniors who share the same name. Nick Travieso provided the spark for the Mavericks offense with a towering home run in the second inning, while teammate Nick Basto had a key RBI double in the pivotal sixth inning. Travieso finished the evening 1-for-2, and Basto completed his night of work with the bat 2-for-4.

“They really sparked us tonight,” said Archbishop Head Coach Rick Bielski. “It was nice to see. We’ve gotten some clutch performances from our seniors this year, and both of those guys are juniors, and it was nice to see them contribute in a big way.”

Defensively, the Mavericks were not as sharp as they would like to be at this point in the season. Three errors could have led to Chaminade runs had it not been for the pitching of starter Alex Fernandez. The senior did not have his best outing, and that is a scary thought considering he gave up no runs on three hits in five innings.

“I just battled,” said Fernandez, when asked what the approach was when he knew he did not have his best stuff on this day. “Mentally, be strong. You have to make your pitches and hit your spots.”

Chaminade attempted to make a comeback in the sixth, when Adrian Garcia hit a two run homer to left. The homer cut the lead to 5-2, but that was all the Lions would get off freshman reliever Brian Gonzalez. The freshman showed his youth during Thursday’s outing, walking two batters in the seventh inning despite having a five run lead, but he was able to escape without further damage.

“This is what we call, ‘throwing them into the fire’,” said Bielski of his young pitcher Gonzalez. “He’s a very talented freshman, we call him ‘Big B’, this was a great opportunity for him to pitch against a quality team and get into the fire a little bit, and get some good experience.”

As for the future goal of the Mavericks, it starts and ends with another trip to the final four to defend their state championship, and Travieso believes he understands what it will take to make another long run through the playoffs.

“We need to play as a team more,” said Travieso. “We need to back each other up, make sure we make the plays we need to, and just stay together to the end.”

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