Continuing its longest winning streak of the season, the Marauders made it nine in a row Saturday, May 7, and needed 11 innings to do it against No. 4 Douglas High School, 4-2.
The first round of the 4A-II conference state playoffs Saturday didn’t come easy for No. 13 Mingus, but the boys in red tallied a pair in the top of the 11th to advance to round two Wednesday, May 11.
Back on April 12, first-year Mingus Union High School baseball Head Coach Kent Winslow sat in the dugout disgusted after getting beat by Sunnyslope High School, 13-4.
He was quoted after the game, saying, “We’re way too talented to be this bad,” and, “We tend to point fingers.”
Mingus went on to lose at Coconino High School on April 14, 9-4, but since then, the finger pointing has stopped, and the Marauders have won an impressive nine straight contests in the last three-plus weeks.
“We’re playing pretty well right now,” a rejuvenated Winslow said. “It’s been good to get it going. We’ve played good defense, had good pitching and are swinging the bats.”
Winslow couldn’t attribute any one specific thing the Marauders are doing, except for the Arcadia High School game April 19 in a 1-0 win.
“I think after Arcadia, to win a game like that against a good team, the boys just came together,” Winslow said.
The victory against Arcadia was the third win in this nine-game win streak.
Against Douglas, Matt Chavez toed the mound and went all 11 innings, throwing 119 pitches while allowing two runs on nine hits while striking out six and walking one.
At the plate, Mingus struck out an appalling 18 times, but collected 10 hits of its own including Ronald Morones who was 2-3 with a double and an RBI.
Mingus’ leading hitter in Erick Quesada was 2-5 with a triple and a run scored while Mike Newhall was 2-5 with a double and a run scored as well.
With the victory, Mingus improves to 16-13 overall this season but is 16-7 since starting the 2011 campaign 0-6. The Marauders are 11-3 since April 7.
Next up, Mingus will play No. 5 Notre Dame Preparatory Academy on Wednesday at the Peoria Sports Complex Stadium with a first pitch scheduled for 4 p.m.
Mingus and Notre Dame have some recent history, since the two have locked horns before in the state playoffs. Mingus defeated Notre Dame in 2008 and 2009 to win back-to-back state championships.
According to Winslow, Mingus is leaning toward throwing Chavez right back out there after three days rest. If Chavez doesn’t pitch, Winslow is more than likely going to hand the ball to freshman flame thrower Marshall Shill.
If the Marauders are able to get past Notre Dame today, Mingus would play Friday, May 13, against either No. 1 Thunderbird High School or No. 8 Liberty High School.
The Thunderbird-Liberty matchup takes place immediately following Mingus’ game at the Peoria Sports Complex Stadium.
