When two powerhouses collide, you'd better stick around for every single out.
A packed crowd at McAndrew Field spent most of Saturday afternoon on the edge of their seats while the players on the diamond put on a memorable display.
With the league title in the balance, Bayfield (16-4, 7-1 3A IML) shocked Montezuma-Cortez with a 10-run seventh inning to overturn a four-run deficit and capture Game 1 of a riveting twin bill. Unperturbed, the Panthers kept their cool to respond with a 4-2 victory in the second contest to split the day's action, and earn both teams a share of the 3A Intermountain League title.
Both teams entered action in the top eight in the CHSAA Seeding Index in the 3A, and each appears poised to likely host a regional site in the opening rounds of the state tournament in the coming week.
M-CHS head coach Tim Passell turned to right-hander Miles Frost to seek the split, and the hard-throwing junior produced another stellar outing. Frost set down the top of the order in the first, and then let his offense go to work.
The Panthers (18-4, 7-1 3A IML) loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the first inning without hitting the ball more than 10 feet, using a walk, hit batter, and bunt single to set up a promising inning. A sacrifice fly from freshman Darren Daves pushed across classmate Cory Carver to put M-CHS in front.
A couple of batters later, Bayfield starter Jackson Queen fired a wild pitch, scoring M-CHS senior Evan LaMunyon and putting the home team up 2-0.
However, Queen limited further damage with a strikeout of Panther Samson Lein to strand the bases full.
After walking Noah Chamblee to lead off the second inning, Frost induced a ground ball for a 6-4-3 double play, then struck out freshman Tavian Box to continue to face the minimum.
Wolverines sophomore Micah Cornelia reached via error to lead off the third, but Frost went back to freeze the next batter with a perfectly placed breaking ball, before getting a ground ball and fly out to end the threat.
Queen started to find his rhythm in the middle innings, keeping the Panthers’ bats quiet in scoreless second and third innings.
Bayfield senior captain Lance Mazur broke up the no-hitter in the fourth with a clean single against Frost, swiping second before Chamblee belted a wall-banging double to cut the deficit in half. Box followed suit, dropping a single into center field to tie the score.
Frost escaped a jam in the fifth, as Bayfield junior Donovan Candelaria reached on an error, then advanced to third on a second Panthers miscue. However, Frost navigated another ground out to keep the game locked at two apiece.
After three scoreless frames, the M-CHS offense awoke from a slumber with a big fifth inning. LaMunyon led off with a walk, followed by a resounding double from senior Jake Blackmer to put runners on second and third. Senior Braden Hallman stroked the biggest hit of the game, pulling a single through the left side of the infield to drive in two runs.
“It was something I could put a barrel on,” said Hallman. “I didn't try to do too much – and it gave us the momentum, and we ran with it.”
Blackmer then took the ball in the top of the seventh looking to sew up the win. He worked a perfect inning to preserve the split and give the Panthers a share of the league.
“I just wanted to come out there and chuck it,” said Blackmer of his overpowering save, “and we didn't want to let Miles down – he threw an amazing game.”
Frost held Bayfield to four hits in six strong innings, striking out seven while only walking one batter. The defense behind Frost proved to be key, as Lein played a stout role at first base, while the outfield efforts of seniors Wyatt Foster and Gabriel Crowley helped track down Bayfield flies.
“We don't quit fighting,” added Blackmer, after the team showed resilience following the Game 1 disappointment. “We know that’s what we're going to need to do if we want to go deep in the playoffs.”
“We’ve been building toward this for four years. The team chemistry has been incredible,” said Hallman of his team’s seniors, “and we deserved to have this season.”
Down 6-0 through two innings and 9-5 heading to the final frame did little to faze head coach Robert Miller's Wolverines.
Fourteen Wolverines trotted to the plate in the seventh inning, reversing the script that seemed to be destined for the home-standing Panthers.
M-CHS sent 11 to the dish in a five-run first inning, highlighted by the first of two Daves home runs. His two-run blast in the first preceded his solo shot in the second made it appear that M-CHS might run away from Bayfield.
The comeback began with four runs in the third, headlined by a three-run blast to center field from senior catcher Nic Twedt.
Montezuma-Cortez answered with a pair of runs in the third to restore the lead to 8-4, before the teams traded runs in the fifth and sixth to head to the seventh with M-CHS three outs away from the win.
Then, the floodgates opened.
After Twedt was hit by a pitch to begin the decisive frame, six of the next seven Wolverines reached safely, with senior Caden Wood collecting the first of his two hits in the seventh inning to cut the lead to three at 9-6. Queen added an RBI single, then sophomore Lincoln Williams collected his biggest hit of the season with an RBI single to put Bayfield in front.
“Williams had only played one year of Little League, and he ended up coming up with that big hit for us,” said the Bayfield skipper. “He’s just a super athlete.”
Bayfield added three more hits to the parade, suddenly shifting the energy squarely into the visiting dugout.
“We’d been hitting the whole game up to that point, it was just a matter of putting them together,” said Miller. “But we really scrapped, even after the rough first inning.”
A stunned M-CHS squad scored twice in their last at-bat on a two-run home run from Carver, but Bayfield secured the win behind Wood’s final inning of work.
“All week in practice, we’ve been really loose, and these guys know what they need to do,” said Miller, “So to put it together, that was pretty awesome.”
Carver finished 3-for-4, while Daves and LaMunyon produced multi-hit days for M-CHS.
Mazur banged out four hits – all singles – to lead Bayfield, joining Wood’s four-hit barrage. Chamblee reached safely four times, and Twedt and Cornelia each scored three runs.
M-CHS has one more game on the slate, a trip to Del Norte on Tuesday, May 16, before learning their postseason fate. Bayfield’s regular season came to a close, and now the Wolverines and Panthers hope that their body of work serves to catapult them into regional home games.
