HARBOR CITY — Things did not start well for the Harbor Teacher Prep baseball team in Tuesday’s L.A. City Section Division II semifinal against Monroe at L.A. Harbor College.
The Monarchs committed four errors that led to five unearned runs and they found themselves trailing by seven.
However, the Monarchs quickly regrouped and scored six runs over the next two innings to get within one, but that was as close as they would get.
Thanks to the pitching of Aaron Beltran, who escaped a bases-loaded jam in the fifth, Monroe prevailed for a 10-7 win over the Monarchs.
Monroe advances to Friday’s championship game.
“I think we had semifinal jitters early and it cost us,” Harbor Teacher Prep coach Steven Pozo said. “Once we calmed down and started to get comfortable, the game started turning around. But unfortunately it was too much of a deficit to overcome.
“This group of guys are special. Ever since the first game of the season I knew we had a great group of young men and they came together like a big family throughout the season.
“I’m proud of how they didn’t give up and came back and fought through the adversity today. At the end, they (Monroe) played very good defense and made more good pitches than us when it mattered. It will be a good learning experience for our younger guys going into next season.”
With a 3-0 lead, Monroe opened the fourth looking for more.
Beltran lifted a fly ball to left field, but Quinten Duran misplayed it, allowing a runner to score from second. An errant throw by catcher Ricardo Garcia trying to throw out Beltran at second base went into center field and Beltran came home for a 5-0 lead.
Later, another error and a wild pitch brought home two more runs for a 7-0 lead for Monroe.
The Monarchs started their comeback with Nieves’ single that drove home Nevarez, and Garcia’s sacrifice fly scored Nieves to make it 7-2.
The Monarchs sent nine men to the plate in the bottom of the fifth, scoring four runs to cut their deficit to 7-6.
“I knew we were down 7-0 and then I hit that double and I was thinking this is where it all starts, this is the comeback and the guys started hitting,” said Nevarez, who went 2 for 4 with two runs scored and an RBI. “Unfortunately, we fell short a little bit.
“This year was a blessing. It’s tough losing, especially for the seniors. This will give us motivation to get better for next year.”
Later in the inning, the Monarchs loaded the bases, but that’s when Beltran entered and retired the next two hitters to end the threat.
Monroe tacked on two runs in the top of the sixth for a 10-7 lead.
“I’m proud of my teammates, we fought hard all year long,” Jonathan Garcia said. “After our first couple of games it didn’t look too good and I thought we were going to lose every game, but came back and started playing hard and we got really far.”
In the other semifinal game, third-seeded Eagle Rock broke a scoreless tie in the sixth inning with two runs and held on for a 2-1 win over seventh-seeded Port of Los Angeles (15-7).
The Polar Bears had just two hits in the game.
POLA had playoff wins over Chavez 4-0 and Sotomayor 6-1.