Bishop Gorman’s baseball team looked to take home Saturday’s Class 5A Southern Region title by playing, and winning, just one game against Centennial.
That didn’t work out after losing the first game in the morning, 17-5, but the Gaels pulled through on their second opportunity to win the title.
Behind six strong innings from senior pitcher Noah Ramos, Gorman bounced back to defeat Centennial 3-1 in the afternoon at Durango to win the 5A Southern Region title.
“It’s great. It was our goal all year to try to get that No. 1 seed (at state),” Gorman coach Matt Stoner said. “It’s just another one of our goals that we reached, and I was proud of the guys because we did not play very good today, in both games.”
Since Gorman, the Mountain League’s No. 1 seed, had not lost in the double-elimination tournament entering Saturday, the rout by Centennial in the morning forced the winner-take-all second game in the blazing afternoon sun.
“I was proud of how they fought and got that second one,” Stoner said. “You put the duct tape on the rearview mirror and don’t worry about what happened in the past and move forward. They did a good job of it.”
Gorman (29-6) and Centennial (27-11) both advance to the 5A state tournament, which begins next week at Las Vegas High.
Gorman has earned the South’s No. 1 seed and will play Bishop Manogue, the North’s No. 2 seed, in an opening-round game at 1 p.m. Thursday at Las Vegas High. Centennial, the South’s No. 2 seed, will follow against Northern champion Spanish Springs at 3:30 p.m.
On Saturday, Ramos made his third start of the season for Gorman after dealing with lingering forearm tightness throughout the year. The right-hander didn’t show any rust, as he worked through the Centennial lineup in an efficient six innings on 70 pitches with four strikeouts and one run allowed on five hits.
“Noah Ramos was incredible today,” Stoner said. “He gave us an opportunity to win. … We’ve been bringing him back slow, he wasn’t feeling good all year, but he just did a really good job.
“He’s a strike thrower, and that’s what you need to do (to win). We didn’t throw strikes in the first game.”
Ramos worked out of trouble in his final inning. Gorman led 3-0 entering the bottom of the sixth, but Ramos gave up an RBI double to TJ Otis with two outs. Ramos settled down and struck out Kane Barber to end the inning.
“I feel great, definitely on top of the world,” Ramos said. “I haven’t pitched in a little bit, I’ve been injured, so coming out here, especially in the heat, it was a lot, but I had to get it done.”
Centennial starting pitcher Maddux Barker kept Gorman off the board through the first four innings before the Gaels got a sacrifice fly from Alex LaRosa to score Ajay Hermosura for the game’s first run.
Then Gorman added to its lead in the sixth when Barker balked to bring home Justin Rodrigues, and Washington State football commit DaMari Hall singled to left field to score Logan Grubbs to put the Gaels ahead 3-0.
“It’s good momentum,” Stoner said. “We got the momentum in this game, and we just have to build off it. We’re just going to practice as hard as we can and try to get better those three days because we need to get better.”
In the first game, Centennial raced out to a 5-1 lead after the second inning. Then the Bulldogs exploded for 10 runs in the sixth inning, highlighted by a grand slam from Jake Turner and four runs scored via bases-loaded walks.
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.
