Shorthanded Columbus squeaks past Western to advance to regional baseball semifinals

Longtime Columbus baseball coach Joe Weber entered Tuesday afternoon’s Region 4-7A quarterfinal contest with 611 wins, two state titles, seven final four appearances and 20 district championships.

But it was win No. 612 that he will put right at the top and never forget.

With his Explorers dealing with a much harsher-than-expected penalty of 18 suspended players including six starters following a dugout-clearing confrontation with Braddock in last week’s district title game (one in which there were no physical altercations), it was a rare day for Columbus baseball.

The Explorers, who hardly ever lose at home, were forced to start four players from their JV team and one from the freshman team, and faced Davie Western as an underdog on their own field.

But there they were, two-and-half hours after the first pitch, celebrating after Matthew “Chubs” Fernandez, one of those four JV players, drew a bases-loaded, two-out walk to bring in the winning run as Columbus edged Western 3-2.

The No. 3 seed Explorers (20-6) advance to a Region 4-7A semifinal contest on Friday at 4 p.m. when they travel to West Broward to take on the No. 2 seeded Bobcats and will be back at full strength with all suspended players eligible again.

“This is unbelievable and a win that I will always cherish,” said Weber, his voice cracking with emotion. “I told the kids after the game that we’ve won two state titles here and gone to the state final four a bunch of times but I don’t know when I’ve ever been more proud of a group of kids than I am of them today and the guts they showed out there to get this done. To take a gut punch like we did and to step up and do what they did. They were unbelievable out there, much more than we could’ve ever anticipated.”

In addition to Hernandez, who also came through with an RBI single in the first inning to stake his team and starting pitcher Matt Rios to an early 1-0 lead, all of the other “youngsters” contributed as well.

Third baseman Brady Kehan came through with a solid game, handling all the ground balls that came his way and producing a perfect sacrifice bunt in the second inning that allowed Columbus to score its second run. He then had a leadoff base hit in the last of the seventh which sparked the game-winning rally.

Designated hitter Evan Paul drilled a double off the wall in left center and eventually came around to score that run in the second inning.

Right fielder A.J. Rivero (from the freshman team) made a spectacular diving catch of a sinking line drive in the second inning.

Second baseman Juan Jacome successfully sacrificed Kehan down to second after his leadoff hit in the seventh.

“Believe it or not, I wasn’t really nervous when I stepped up in that last inning,” said Fernandez, who said he was a little heavy as a toddler and his sister gave him the nickname which stuck. “You just have to make sure you slow everything down and that’s what I did. I got the take sign and was taking all the way.”

Western starter Mason Blocker was outstanding most of the day but finally exited in the seventh and was replaced by Jimmy Huard, who inherited a first-and-second, one out situation. After getting Jose Correa (one of three regular Columbus starters who were eligible to play) to fly out to right, Huard walked Aquiles Arzano (one of the other three starters) before Fernandez stepped up to the plate and drew the winning walk on four pitches.

“It’s just.....we just don’t feel like JV or freshmen players,” Fernandez said. “We feel like we can play on a varsity team for anybody including up here with these guys as well. Today was an opportunity to prove that and it feels great that we were able to contribute to this big win. It’s baseball, a game, nothing bigger than that. You forget all the other noise and just pretend you’re playing whiffle ball with pops in the front yard.”

The one area Weber was not completely handicapped was on the mound as he had his best two arms, Rios and Jason Vasquez available.

With an enormous amount of pressure on his shoulders, Rios took the mound and gutted out a 103-pitch effort, striking out eight Wildcat batters while scattering four hits. He took a 2-1 lead to the last inning but when a throwing error at shortstop allowed leadoff hitter Jadyn Perez to reach and he followed that up by hitting Bryce Huffman to put runners on first and second, his day was done as Weber went to Vasquez.

A second error (the only two errors Columbus committed all game) on an attempted sacrifice bunt loaded the bases with no outs and the Western dugout was awfully noisy. But Vasquez buckled down and struck out leadoff hitter Aiden Andreu for the first out and when Geovany Escandon hit a sharp grounder to third, Kehan cooly fired home for the force out. Arzano, the catcher then turned to fire down to first to nail Escandon which would’ve ended the game. But the ball hit Escandon’s helmet and bounced away allowing Huffman to score, tying the game.

“Before the game everybody was telling me you, ‘It’s all on you and that you’ve got us’ so I just wanted to come out today and just try and treat it like a normal game even though I knew it wasn’t normal,” Rios said. “It feels amazing to do what we did today. These young guys today? I wish we could give a bunch of game balls out because each one of them would get one. Now having done this, it gives us the confidence that we can beat anybody and go all the way.”