VarsityXtra

Mesa Desert Ridge’s Jake Barrett is on a homer binge his coach has not seen before.
“It’s incredible what he’s doing,” Desert Ridge coach Pat Herrera said. “He’s already got 11 and we’ve played 13 games. He’s hit one in every game of the tournament so far.”

Desert Ridge faced Mesa High Wednesday night in the semifinals of the Victory Classic, held at Gilbert Highland and Desert Ridge high schools. Barrett has seven homers in his last five games, including back-to-back two-homer games prior to the start of the tournament on Monday.

Also knocking the ball out of ballparks at a rapid pace are Mesa Red Mountain’s Cole Gleason (7), Scottsdale Desert Mountain’s Taylor Lindsey, who belted No. 7 on Wednesday; Phoenix Pinnacle’s Ashton McCoy (7), Scottsdale Horizon’s Tommy Joseph (6), Gilbert’s D.J. Peterson (6) and Phoenix Desert Vista’s Jaycob Brugman, who cracked No. 6 on Wednesday.

Mesa Red Mountain hasn’t had much fun this spring break. Make that zero fun.

The Mountain Lions, who started the season 5-2, have lost their last five games. The last four have come since Monday — defeats to Scottsdale Desert Mountain, Phoenix Desert Vista, Chandler High and Chandler Basha in the East Valley-Fiesta Spring Tournament.

The main culprit has been poor defense.

“Our pitching coach Rich Yett and I sat down and figured out that only 14 of the (37) runs we’ve given up in the tournament are earned,” Red Mountain coach Jason Grantham said. “We usually take batting practice before going to a game. (Wednesday) we took ground balls instead. It didn’t work because we still kicked the ball around against Basha (an 11-6 loss).”

Mesa Mountain View second baseman Anthony Reda hit the ultimate home run Wednesday, but won’t officially get credit for it.

Reda cracked what would have been a grand slam in a nine-run inning in Mountain View’s 10-0 victory over Mesa Skyline. The hit will go in the books, however, as a three-run single.

“He hit a high deep fly and all the runners were tagging,” Mountain View coach Mike Thiel said. “He didn’t notice. The ball ended up landing over the fence, but he passed the runner at first so he was out.”

Reda was 3-for-3 in the game, helping Mountain View to its fifth straight win.

Gilbert Mesquite’s Austin Carr and Phoenix Desert Vista’s Matt Wehrli were locked in a 1-1 pitchers’ duel after 4 1/2 innings Tuesday night. Both teams had three hits to that point and had scratched out their runs.

Then the homer barrage courtesy of Desert Vista’s bats came. Cole Pembroke and Ryan Box ripped back-to-back homers in a four-run fifth. Trent Wilson whacked a mammoth two-run shot to center in the sixth to close out the Thunder’s 7-1 victory.

Most schools involved in spring-break tournaments bring along extra players, particularly pitchers from lower levels, to help get their teams through the week. Mesa Mountain View coach Mike Thiel brought up a freshman pitcher from Poston Junior High, Willie Ethington, to help the Toros’ cause this week. Thiel has done it before, but in the past only to use that player for an inning or two and then return him to the junior high.

Ethington may be different as the Toros’ needs are different this year. Ethington started and  threw four innings against Chandler on Tuesday and was solid. He gave up two hits and two runs in that stint. He did not figure in the decision.

Will Ethington stay with the team next week and beyond? Thiel said a decision hasn’t been made yet, but:

“He made two bad pitches, did a nice job,” Thiel said. “Along with that he was very poised.”

When the baseball season opened three weeks ago, Mesa Mountain View wasn’t quite ready for a new beginning.

The Toros lost in a season-opening tournament game to 5A-I East Valley Region rival Mesa Red Mountain, 7-2. After evening its record at 1-1 with a win the next time out, the Toros proceeded to lose four in a row with pitching and a lack of key hits the deficiencies of note. A program that won 26 games in 2008 and lost but 6 was one loss away from equaling  2008’s loss total before spring break was over.

But the cyclical side of the game has stepped in over the last week. With a pair of tournament wins over Gilbert High and Chandler High on Tuesday in the East Valley-Fiesta Spring Tournament, the Toros have won four in a row and are back to the .500 mark.

“Our pitching has been much better the last week and we’re starting to get clutch hitting,” Mountain View coach Mike Thiel said.

While the spring tournament games aren’t power-point games, they are huge to Thiel, who knows confidence is a key for his team heading into games that are all for keeps beginning next week.

Scottsdale Horizon coach Eric Kibler is one of the legenday names in the Arizona high school baseball circuit.

But Joey Danner wouldn’t let him make the decision of when to pull the starting pitcher on Monday night.

Danner battled his way out of a two-on, two-out jam in the top of the sixth inning to preserve Horizon’s 2-1 lead over the nation’s top-ranked squad, Las Vegas Bishop Gorman. When he got to the bench, he had a message for Kibler.

“He comes in and he comes right to me and says ‘I’m pitching the seventh,’” Kibler said. “And it wasn’t a question, either.”

Kibler obliged, and Danner struck out the side as Horizon held on for the 2-1 victory in the Big League Dugout Invitational at Horizon.

Danner was impressive throughout, allowing just one unearned run and four hits while striking out 12 in a complete game victory that moves him to 3-0 this season.

“I didn’t even feel tired,” Danner said. “I had so much adrenaline rushing through me. I didn’t want anybody else in there but me.”

Bishop Gorman took a 1-0 lead in the first inning, and left-hander Jeff Malm was dominant, no-hitting the Huskies (6-4) through five innings. Nick Stein finally broke it up with a leadoff triple in the fifth inning, and Brandon Snyder battled back from an 0-2 count to get a walk, putting runners on first and third with nobody out.

That set up the biggest play of the game, when No. 9 hitter Johnny Rubino pushed a bunt toward second base as a safety squeeze. It got past Malm, and Rabino made it to first and plated the tying run.

Another bunt put runners on second and third with one out, and a sacrifice fly by Dylan Everett scored the winning run.

“They did what they needed to do to score runs,” Bishop Gorman coach Chris Sheff said.

Bishop Gorman’s best chance to rally came in the top of the sixth, when Johnny Field and Erik Van Meetren put together back-to-back, two-out singles. That’s when Danner had the first of four consecutive strikeouts to end the game, getting Neil Lawhorn to chase a 2-2 slider in the dirt to end the inning.

And once he got to that point, he was determined to finish.

“He wanted the ball,” Kibler said. “Normally I don’t let a kid go that long, but in that situation his velocity was good, his command was getting better, so I can’t take that away from the kid.”

Gilbert Highland opened play Monday in the Victory Classic it co-hosts with Mesa Desert Ridge by winning twice in pool play, 11-0 over Bishop McGuinness, Okla., and 6-4 over Gilbert Higley.

James Pazos earned the win in the shutout of Bishop McGuinness, throwing three innings and only 35 pitches. The Hawks got a complete-game five-hitter from Trey Wilson in knocking off pesky Higley.

Three of Higley’s first five games this season have been against 4A-I or 5A-I schools. The Knights are in 4A-II. All three of their losses are to bigger schools.

“We played small ball and manufactured our runs,” Higley coach Mike Masciangelo said. “We played a very clean game. We didn’t win, but I’ll take that kind of execution every time.”

Chandler Hamilton almost saw its perfect record blemished Monday, but a five-run rally in the seventh inning kept the Huskies perfect with a 10-9 win over Tucson Canyon del Oro.

Junior Manuel Mancilla’s RBI single capped the rally and improved Hamilton’s record to 8-0. The win came in the first round of the Big League Dugout National Invitational hosted by Scottsdale Horizon High School.

Mancilla is one of two players from Mexico who joined Hamilton’s program last month and are helping fortify an already perennial power. Tyler Kem’s RBI double tied the game in front of Mancilla’s game-winner.

Gilbert Mesquite won’t have pitcher/outfielder Rocky High for a good portion of the season. That was known a day before the season began when High tore tendons diving for a ball in practice. Now left fielder Jason Gonzales will miss the rest of the season. He’s undergoing shoulder surgery later this week.

And on the second day of the East Valley-Fiesta Region Spring Tournament on Monday, cleanup hitter Steve Harrington was idled by bronchitis that kept the .500-hitting first baseman from playing against Mesa Mountain View.

“We’re taking our lumps right now and having to do things without guys we thought we’d have,” Mesquite coach Jeff Holland said. “We’re younger and less experienced than we thought we’d be right now.”

Mesquite expected to have seasoned pitchers this season in High, a junior left-hander, and sophomore Zach Davies. They still have Davies, but may have to go with another sophomore (Cesar Mayorga) and a freshman (Garret Jeffries) when Fiesta Region play begins later this month.