RJ baseball to play in semi-finals

Jack Griffith ’13

After the Raiders defeated the Fort Collins Lambkins 14-2, they advanced to the quarterfinals, where they advanced to play the Doherty Spartans. The game was exciting for the whole program. Students from the freshman class all the way up to the seniors were there sporting the RJ Red.

The game had a good start for the Raiders. In the bottom half of the first inning, the Raiders went up 3 runs. Afterward, Peter Bayer shut the Spartans down with his stellar pitching.

In the second inning, one play that made the crowd go wild. Senior Drew Merten was a big defensive component for the Raiders. A runner had previously reached first base, but Drew Merton’s cannon stopped him in his tracks. Drew back-picked the runner, concluding the top of the second.

When the third inning came up, the Raiders had started a rally, with two players reaching home base. Sophomore Brody Weiss was walked to load the bases. With senior, Tanner Ernst up to bat, the next pitch hit a base-clearing triple to right-center field. Ernst said after the game, “I was thinking we had this game in the bag.”

Later in the sixth inning, the Raiders were struggling to stay ahead. The Spartans were battling back in the batters’ box, getting many hits with the bases loaded and making the game down to one run. With a score of 7-6, the Raiders did not stop keeping the lead. In the course of that inning, Peter Bayer, the starting pitcher for Regis Jesuit, “just plain ran out of gas,” bringing in senior Brian Eller.

Eller did well for the rest of the 6th, but could not quite get the rest of it done in the 7th inning.
The game was still a one-run game with the Raiders on top. Senior Mitch Robinson eventually came in with a runner on first. With no outs, the game was tense. The pitch came in and the batter hit a long fly ball to left field.

Mitch caught it, maintaining the Raiders’ lead.

In the next at bat, Mitch threw great and struck Doherty’s batter out. The crowd went wild, along with the whole team on the bench. The game was over. The Raiders would advance.

The Raiders went on to the next round, playing Cherokee Trail and beating them 13-12 in the bottom of the 8th inning. The RJ baseball team was carried by key players such as seniors Drew Merten and Johnny Griffith.

Regis Jesuit will play Highlands Ranch on May 27, 2011 at All City Field.

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