American Heritage Advances To 6A-15 Title Game

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American Heritage was well aware of what Hallandale was capable of coming into their district semifinal match-up Tuesday afternoon. The Chargers had played the districts top seed, Archbishop McCarthy, tight in an 8-6 loss earlier in the year.

The Patriots were intent on making sure Hallandale had no such upset hopes on this day, as they scored seven runs in the fist two innings, and then cruised to a 12-2 victory. The win sends the Patriots back to face familiar foe McCarthy, whom they beat last year for the district title.

“Today was a good win against Hallandale,” said Manager Bruce Aven. “We are happy to move on to the district championship game on Thursday.”

The Patriots came out of the gates swinging. Alfonso Guillen led off the bottom of the first with a walk, promptly stole second and moved to third on an error. Tristan Casas then hit a scarifice fly to bring in Guillen with the first run of the game.

Travis Holt and Santiago Garavito then hit consecutive singles, starting a rally that would plate four more runs in the opening frame.

Hallandale tried to respond in the second when Chris Lugo singled, stole second, and moved to third on an Andres Palacios single. Lugo then scored on a fielder’s choice groundout.

In their half of the second, Heritage pulled away with two additional runs, running the score to 7-1. From there, Hallandale threatened a couple of times, but the Patriots were able to score one in the fourth, three in the fifth, and one in the sixth to end the mercy-rule game.

On the mound for Heritage was Anthony Boix, who managed to strike out eight Chargers in his 5.1 innings of work. Taylor D’Agostino threw the final .2 of an inning for the Patriots.

Offensively, it was a little bit from the entire lineup as seven Patriots batters had hits. Damian Seralta was the only Heritage batter with more than one hit, finishing the day 2-for-4, with a run and three RBIs.

With the Chargers out of the way, Heritage will now turn their attention to the Mavericks. When the teams played the first time, Heritage spotted McCarthy a seven run lead, and then clawed their way back before eventually falling 7-5. This time around, Aven is confident in how his team has progressively gotten better as the season has rolled on.

“Our team has been playing good baseball,” said Aven. “We have cut out mistakes that were beating us earlier in the season.

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