PLAINVIEW – The gamut of emotions that is playoff baseball was on full display Saturday afternoon at Wilder Field.
It’s safe to say that Randall and Lubbock-Cooper Liberty both experienced the full range of those by the end of the day. It’s even safer to say that Randall experienced the worst of those.
The Raiders were one out away from completing an improbable comeback and taking the best-of-three Class 4A Division II region semifinal series from Cooper. In the end, elation turned to frustration, as Cooper’s Kaden Brewer hit a bases-loaded single up the middle to hand Randall a 12-11 loss and a ticket home for the season.
This came after the Raiders (21-16-1) forced a third game by rolling over Liberty 10-0 in a six-inning 10-run mercy rule win earlier in the afternoon to tie the series. That was a bounceback win from the previous day, when the Patriots thumped Randall 15-7, closing out the game with 14 consecutive runs.
The rest of this story is only for subscribers.
Indeed, it was a rollercoaster of a series in which momentum didn’t seem to last for long. The difference was that Liberty had the last at-bat in the last game in the bottom of the seventh.
“That’s baseball,” Randall coach Brad Propst said. “Those guys in the dugout have been preaching dirtbag mentality this entire year. Every single one of them pull for each other. Sometimes the ball doesn’t bounce your way but these guys all competed all day and I’m super proud of them.”
The Raiders actually scored first in all three games, but in the first and third games, Liberty would eventually bounce back with big innings. In game three, the Patriots took a 7-2 lead after three innings before the Raiders eventually tied the game 8-8 with two runs in the top of the sixth.
Randall got to Liberty relief ace Cooper Pierce in the top of the seventh. John Aguilera’s bloop single to center gave the Raiders a 9-8 lead, and a fielder’s choice and a sacrifice fly made it 11-8 going into the bottom of the seventh.
Kaison Kauk, who had come on in relief in the sixth, got Barrett Sugarek to ground out to short to start the inning. Brody Box then singled and when Kauk went to a 2-0 count on Jackson Payne, Propst pulled him for Jonathan Noriega.
The move made some sense considering that Noriega was on the mound in Randall’s win to tie the series. He gave up only two hits in six innings and allowed only one runner to reach third.
Noriega had thrown only 85 pitches in the win, meaning he still had 25 pitches to use before reaching the UIL’s 110 pitches a week limit.
“I asked him before the inning started if he could finish the game and that’s probably a decision I’ll be kicking myself about,” Propst said. “Not because he couldn’t do the job, but sometimes you go with your gut.”
Noriega eventually gave up a single to Payne and another one to Levi Walker to load the bases. Gavin McPherson then flew out to center to bring home Box and cut it to 11-9, but the Raiders were now only one out away from victory.
It fell apart after that, though. Noriega walked Will Hutson to load the bases and uncorked a wild pitch to bring home a run to make it 11-10. Jackson then walked to reload the bases and when Noriega went to a 2-0 count on Nash Gonzales, this time he was pulled, and Kauk was brought back to the mound.
Kauk had been playing third base when he relieved Paul Aguilera and when he took the mound Noriega took third. The two of them spent the rest of the game switching.
“(Noriega’s) pitch count was getting up there and he’s had some shoulder issues and was probably running out of gas so I went back to Kaison,” Propst said. “Kaison was kind of upset with me when I took him out the first time so I felt like I could get the ball to a guy who really wanted it. They beat us in the zone and put the bat on the ball.”
Kauk walked Gonzales to bring in the tying run. Two pitches later, Brewer singled up the middle to drive home Hutson with the winning run.
It couldn’t have been any more opposite of a result from the first game. The Raiders were in control the whole way and seemed determined to force a third game.
They got all the runs they needed in the first game when Liberty starter hit the first two batters and Diego Flanagan drove home a run with a sacrifice fly to make it 1-0. Randall added two more runs in the third and led 3-0 despite not recording a hit through the first two innings.
The Raiders managed only six hits on the day but made the most of what they did. They led 8-0 heading into the bottom of the sixth before Braylen Preciado drove home a run with a double, then Braxton Lowrey hit a sacrifice fly to right to invoke the run rule and force the third game.
Following a game one where they were scoreless for the last five innings, the Raiders scored at least one run in eight straight innings bridging games two and three. It confirmed their status as a streaky offensive team which recovered from a scoring slump during the second half of District 4-4A play.
“I think in the second half of district play in practice we changed what we did offensively and that really propelled us,” Propst said. “We didn’t throw up a whole lot of zeros offensively on the scoreboard. Last night was kind of abnormal to see all those zeros up there toward the end of the game.”
In the first game, Randall scored five runs in the first (capped by Kauk’s two-run single) and two in the second to go up 7-1 and knock out Liberty starter Jordan Eddins. It was all Liberty after that, as the Patriots scored four in the third to knock out Randall starter Paul Aguilera, then took the lead for good on an RBI single by Box in the fourth to make it 8-7.
Liberty put the game away by sending 12 batters to the plate in the fifth and scoring seven runs.
The Patriots had all the momentum heading into Saturday. Six innings later, Randall had it, showing how crazy the series was.
“Our kids have been really good about handling things and I just try to preach to them that we earned this right to play bad today,” Liberty coach Lamar Kello said. “We won the game yesterday. (Randall) had momentum but other than that there was nothing else. It was 1-1 and we moved past the fact that they won a game and had momentum.”
In the end, Liberty took the momentum and is moving on. Randall can only wonder what might have been, especially since the Raiders didn’t have left-hander Adam Trevino, who was key component of the pitching staff this season, but missed the playoffs with a broken jaw.
“The amount of adversity we faced was big,” Propst said. “We were down two starting pitchers going into the playoffs. To be in this position one out away from the regional finals, I couldn’t be any more proud of these guys and I love every single one of them.”