Gulliver baseball shows resilience in regional semifinal win over Monsignor Pace
With their season on the line, the Gulliver Prep baseball team saw a pair of freshmen step up in the biggest of moments on Saturday.
Lucas Murphy had the big hit — a bases-clearing double that gave the Raiders a lead and shifted momentum back in their favor.
Landon Sementilli made the big pitches — stranding the bases loaded in the seventh inning to close out the contest.
The final result: A 7-4 Gulliver Prep win in a winner-take-all Game 3 of its Class 3A regional semifinal against host Monsignor Pace to keep its season alive. Gulliver Prep and Monsignor Pace split the first two games with opposing mercy-rule victories — Gulliver 19-6 in five innings on Friday, Pace 14-2 in five innings on Saturday afternoon to force the decisive Game 3.
“Over the course of the year, the young guys definitely have started to take more charge in this team,” Murphy said, “but these older leaders, they’re great to help develop our younger guys.”
Gulliver Prep (18-11), the No. 3 seed in Region 4-3A, will next host No. 8 seed Miami Springs in the regional final for a chance to make it to state. Miami Springs advanced through the regional semifinal with a pair of wins over No. 4 seed iMater Charter.
“It means everything,” said Gulliver senior shortstop Jacob Lombard, who is projected to be a first-round pick in the 2026 MLB Draft. “Whatever happens now, at least we get to do it on our home field. It is huge for us, but you know, we’re not planning on ending it there. We’re planning on ending in Fort Myers, up in the state championships.”
But things were looking dicey for Gulliver on Saturday.
The Raiders entered the day needing just one win to advance and had momentum on their side after their dominance in Game 1 on Friday, a game that featured Gulliver mashing four home runs.
But Monsignor Pace (14-14) quickly took hold of Game 2. Catcher Jacob Reyes hit a two-run homer in the first before the Spartans put up seven runs in the third and five runs in the fourth against spotty and inconsistent Gulliver Prep pitching. Monsignor Pace pitcher Marco Loreto shut out Gulliver for four innings before giving up two runs in the fifth. He struck out Lombard to secure the shutout and force a Game 3.
“After Game 2, our coaches told us to rinse everything that happened,” Murphy said. “Come out with the same fire that we had Day 1.”
Gulliver then found itself down 3-0 early in Game 3 on RBI doubles from Pace’s Darian Goris, Giovanni Padron and Derek Lyman in the second inning.
The Raiders responded with a five-run fourth inning to take the lead for good. Omar Falcon led off with a single before Pace logged two quick outs. A walk to Sementilli put runners on first and second before Aiden Falcon hit an RBI double to cut Gulliver’s deficit to 3-1. An intentional walk to Lombard loaded the bases to bring Murphy up. The freshman hit a shallow fly ball to left field, which Pace’s Joshua Poletto misread off the bat. He dove and missed the ball, which allowed all three baserunners to score. Murphy then scored himself on a wild pitch during the following at-bat.
“I saw that ball drop and there was definitely some relief,” Murphy said. “I was trying to do a job there with the bases loaded. We were down. I was trying to clear the bases. And obviously, that’s what happened.”
Gulliver tacked on one more run in each the fifth and sixth innings to push its lead to 7-3. Monsignor Pace would get one run back in the sixth and put together a rally attempt in the seventh. Reyes opened with a single and Jordan Young drew a walk to put runners on first and second before Gulliver went to Sementilli to close out the game. He forced a pair of popouts before walking Loreto to load the bases. Justin Kolano then lined out to right field to end the game.
Celebration ensued for the visitors.
“Resilience is something we’ve been showing all year,” Gulliver coach Rey Gonzalez said. “We’ve had some ups and downs. Got a young team, young club, but we’ve we’ve persevered, we’ve shown fight, and we put it together. It’s all peaking at the right time — right now.”
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