Camp Verde High School got up a run on the top team in the state in the fifth inning but could not make it hold up Saturday, May 7, giving up two runs on errors to end its baseball season with a 5-4 loss.
While the rally started with an infield error, Desert Christian High School, of Tucson, took advantage of two throwing errors to score two runs in the bottom of the sixth of the Division IV quarterfinals.
“We got a little tight,” head coach Will Davis said. “It just seemed like everybody started trying to do too much.”
Although the top of the CVHS order hit the Eagles hard twice in the top of the seventh, they were “just not in the right spots,” as Davis put it.
Line drives by junior Wyatt Howe and sophomore Rafael Zapata went right to the Desert Christian defense before junior Ryan Cain struck out.
“They were all a little upset afterward,” Davis said. “I mostly just thanked them for a great season, and of course putting up with me. I can be a tough coach at times.”
The defense had been solid the first five innings for the Cowboys [19-11], who climbed out of a 3-0 hole to take the lead behind two run-scoring doubles from junior catcher Easton Braden and sophomore third baseman Rafael Zapata.
“We started out loose,” Davis said. “We weren’t making any mistakes. We were hanging with them, non-stop, the whole way.”
The first three runs were earned off senior Logan Conrad, who suffered just his second loss of the season despite striking out six Eagles and giving up just two walks.
“I think they had been held under six runs in just one non-tournament loss all year,” Davis said. “The fact that we held them to just three earned runs was really huge.”
Desert Christian reached Conrad for one run in the second inning before striking for two more in the fourth.
“He didn’t seem down too bad afterward,” Davis said. “He did great against them. It was just that one inning that we didn’t have time to come back from.”
Although Conrad will be the biggest hole in the lineup to fill next year, another loss felt will be senior outfielder Blake Penrod, who started the fifth-inning rally with a walk, advancing to second on a fielding error by the Eagles third baseman on a hard-hit ball by Howe.
Following Zapata’s two-RBI double, Cain walked, and Braden would drive in both of them to take the lead.
“We should be really dominant next year,” Davis said. “This is a great building block. I feel confident we’ll be ready to make another run at it.”
The key, at least for pitching, will be how well Darren Franklin takes Conrad’s place. The junior struck out 19, going 1-2 in more than 22 innings pitched before being suspended from the team the final month of the season for his involvement in an on-campus fighting incident.
“He’s been hanging around as much as legally possible,” Davis said. “We have to really work with Raffie and Ryan this summer. With [Franklin] and Easton, that’ll give us a good core.”
Freshmen Dakota Battise and Dominic Bruno should also figure into the rotation, along with Zapata.
Bruno had emerged as a consistent outfield starter for the Cowboys before breaking his elbow for the second time this spring in the third inning against Desert Christian.
For more information about Camp Verde High School’s state softball championship coverage, please see the Wednesday, May 11, issues of the Camp Verde Journal and Cottonwood Journal Extra.
