2016 NHSI: Flanagan Tops Mater Dei In A Battle Of Rallies

CARY, N.C.—Friday’s afternoon game at the National High School Invitational was as tight as possible. Mater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.) High and Flanagan High (Pembroke Pines, Fla.) traded leads and ties all game long until Flanagan was left standing.

All it took was a little patience.

With the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh and an 0-fer on the afternoon, Flanagan’s fifth-place hitter, Dylan O’Connell, stepped up. He sifted through pitch after pitch until he’d worked the count full, then watched as a Spencer Neal fastball whizzed past his chest for ball four, forcing home the decisive run in the Falcons’ 4-3 victory.

“I was just trying to put us in the best position to win the game, obviously,” O’Connell said. “Same thing happened in the first Chaminade game with me. Same situation—bases loaded, 3-2—I didn’t get the job done. It really aggravated me.”

In the sixth inning with the bases loaded, ninth hitter Chad Call gave his team the final margin it needed to secure the victory. Facing Arrison Perez, Call lofted a fly ball to deep right. With less wind, he might just have clubbed a grand slam. Instead, the ball was caught, but more than deep enough for the go-ahead run to trot home.

The gust of wind that kept Call’s ball in the yard proved for fortuitous for Flanagan, which escaped the inning with just the one blemish on the ledger. Flanagan took advantage in its half with a knock from Edward Schissler that once again tied the game while Perez twirled two scoreless innings.

Earlier, Mater Dei had taken the edge thanks to one of the tournament’s brightest stars.

Josh Stephen, who entered the day 7-for-8, untied the game in the fifth with an RBI double on the first pitch of the at-bat. The ball landed in the right-field corner just about the time Stephen was tearing around first base, his helmet departing somewhere in the process.

Stephen, a Southern California commit, finished the day 1-for-4 and now owns four doubles and a longball in this year’s tournament. Earlier in the day he’d lashed a hard line drive into the left-center field gap only to have it reigned in by a stiff wind.

Mater Dei’s lead didn’t last long. Flanagan answered in the bottom of the fifth with a game-tying double from leadoff man Eric Rivera. The run pumped even more energy into what was already a raucous Flanagan crowd.

“We’ve been doing that a lot lately,” Flanagan coach Ray Evans said. “We might fall behind. We keep our poise. We keep our patience, knowing that we’re able to come back. We did it the other day and we did it today, and before we left we’d done it maybe three or four times lately.”

Flanagan had tied the game in the third on Ricky Presno’s long fly to right field that would have been at least a double were it not for a combination of wind and a one-in-a-million play from right fielder Grant Burton. Arrison Perez, who walked with two outs to start the rally, scored.

Mater Dei opened the scoring in the first with an RBI knock from Emilio Rosas.