St. Thomas Beats Monarch To Reach Semifinals

When Troy Cameron took over as baseball manager at St. Thomas, he set a goal of returning the program to the prominence it enjoyed during his playing days there.

His team took another step toward getting back to those glory days Saturday by defeating Monarch 4-1 in a Class 7A regional quarterfinal.

The Raiders will host a semifinal game Tuesday against the winner of the Nova at Northeast game that was postponed from Saturday to Monday.

Co-ace Alec Byrd (7-2) guided the Raiders to the win by pitching a complete-game four-hitter.

“As long as we kept the game under control, with him on the mound, we like our chances,” Cameron said.

Byrd maintained his intensity throughout the game and kept the Knights from getting much of anything going.

“I kept getting looser and looser as the game went on,” Byrd said. “I just love pitching in pressure situations. I was fortunate to have everything working. It’s always a good day when that happens.”

St. Thomas (17-6) got out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first as Christian Demby smacked the first of his two doubles to bring in Peter Nicoletto, who had a leadoff single.

Will Arpin had the first of his two hits to lead off the third inning before Nicoletto drew a walk. Demby doubled them in to extend St. Thomas’ lead to 3-0. His hit nearly cleared the fence in right field, but it bounced off the top of the wall.

“That was kind of depressing, but it was a good hit,” Demby said. “I just did what I had to do.”

Monarch (11-9) displayed tenacity through the game and kept themselves in it by making some big plays on defense with the Raiders on base. St. Thomas stranded seven.

Monarch made it a 3-1 game in the fifth as Andrew Rohloff doubled and scored.

Ross Thibeault scored on a passed ball to cap the scoring the next inning.

St. Thomas stole several bases in the game as the Raiders exploited the Knights defense.

“We knew their catcher didn’t have that strong of an arm, and their pitcher was slow to home, so when we got on, we tried to steal as many bases as we could,” Demby said.

The game originally was scheduled for Thursday, but Mother Nature, of course, decided against it and the game was moved to Saturday.

Although not impressed by his team’s performance Saturday, Cameron was pragmatic.

“After a long layoff with all the rain that we got, we really didn’t come out with the intensity that we would have liked or that we have been played at, but the fact of the matter is, we won and we’re still going to be playing so that’s all that matters,” Cameron said.

Demby said the two-day delay was a non-factor.

“We didn’t let [the delay] get into our heads because we were out here every day we could be, and when we couldn’t, we just went to the indoor batting cages and did what we needed to win.”

Although unsatisfied with the final result, Monarch Manager Joe Franco tried to focus on the positive of his team giving a fighting effort throughout the game.

“Our whole motto today was there’s a lot of teams not playing in the regional tournament,” Franco said. “We had an opportunity to play against a great team like St. Thomas. No one gave us a chance. People probably thought we were going to get 10-runned by this team. My kids fought hard, they played hard the entire way. They competed the entire way. That’s been our motto the whole year. Play hard and compete. My kids did that and I’m really proud of the way they played.”

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