Doral baseball hangs on against Braddock after Bulldogs’ comeback runs out of daylight
Doral Academy’s baseball team could have had multiple reasons to start slow on Saturday.
A two-hour lightning delay, which pushed back the game’s initial start time to approximately 5:30 p.m.
Having to play a winner-take-all game on the road at Braddock.
Luckily for the Firebirds, they did just enough to hang on after the Bulldogs literally ran out of daylight.
Led by senior Gabriel Milano and sophomore Jaivyn Francois, who each hit home runs, Doral built an early 5-0 lead and hung on for a 6-5 win over Braddock after the Bulldogs’ comeback attempt came up short when the game was called following the conclusion of the sixth inning.
Braddock normally would have had one more chance in the seventh.
But with no lights at Braddock’s home field, by the time the Bulldogs completed the sixth, it was sundown and the umpires deemed the game did not have the proper visibility to continue.
Doral (26-6-1) advances to the Region 4-6A final where it will travel to Fort Lauderdale to face top-seeded St. Thomas Aquinas in a best-of-3 series beginning Wednesday and continuing Thursday night. The first two games are scheduled to start at 7. If the series goes to a third game, Doral would host next Saturday at a time to be announced.
Milano crushed a pitch for his 11th home run of the season to deliver the first of Doral’s five runs it would score over the first four innings.
The Firebirds would need every single run, plus the one Francois would deliver with another home run in the fifth. Caleb Hernandez also went 3 for 4 with two doubles and two RBI.
“That’s huge in any game but especially late in the playoffs and in game 3 where you don’t have your full set of pitching,” Doral coach Ralph Suarez said. “That was huge.”
Braddock (21-9-1) cut the 5-0 deficit to one run in the bottom of the fourth with senior Sebastian Llamozas delivering the big blow when he hit a three-run home run off Doral starter Jadyn Nunez, a North Carolina commit who had shut the Bulldogs down to that point.
Adam Hernandez and Jorge Gonzalez halted that dominance with back-to-back doubles to open the inning and plate Braddock’s first run. Nunez tossed five innings, allowing five runs on six hits and striking out two.
After Francois’ homer in the fifth, Braddock pulled to within a run again in the bottom of the sixth.
But the Bulldogs left runners on first and second when Doral reliever Matthew Paez induced an inning-ending ground out from Manny Sanchez to pick up his second save of the season.
“The one thing we did a good job was being fundamentally sound,” Suarez said. “We threw a few guys out on the bases. (Braddock) swung the bats good and they never quit so credit to them.”
