Can't be beat

Coronado Cougars shut out rivals to end season undefeated

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Combining the three most important elements to having success in the sport -- good pitching, hitting and defense -- the Coronado High School junior varsity baseball team wrapped up a very memorable unbeaten season by shutting out Silverado, 11-0, in its final game on May 4.

The Cougars, coached by Adam Maxwell, finished 19-0-2 overall and a perfect 10-0-1 in Sunrise Region Southeast Division play, quite a feat considering Coronado plays in the same division with two of the toughest programs in Sin City in Green Valley and Silverado.

Coronado registered its seventh shutout of the season in the finale against the Skyhawks as southpaw Kyle Clarke (5-0, 1.52 ERA) ensured the Cougars' unblemished season would stay that way.

Maxwell told his troops that win or lose, that 21st game of the season would be one that they would always remember.

"I told the kids before the game, 'If you guys win this game you're never going to forget this. It's junior varsity level, but you will never, ever forget this game,' Maxwell said. "And I said, 'Just go out, leave it all on the field and hey, if we win, you're going to love it, if not, you're going to have fun, too.' "

And Maxwell said his team of talented sophomores and freshman had a pretty stoic reaction after that last victory.

"It was actually kind of funny," he said. "They were ecstatic, but also very businesslike. I brought all the kids over in front of the parents and I just said, 'Hey, I want you guys to give these guys a hand for a great season.' So all the parents and the fans out there gave them a hand. I think it got to a point where they expected to win, but they had a good reaction to it."

Although Maxwell -- Coronado's JV coach three of the last four years -- said having an undefeated season wasn't something this team even dreamed about, he did say he and assistant coach Steve Bornhoeft talked a lot about having his players act like a team that knew what it was doing on the diamond.

"My job pretty much as a JV coach is to get these guys better for when they get up to the varsity level, kind of like a farm system," Maxwell said. "But we have really been working on maturity, getting them to do the right things on the baseball field, getting them to do the right things in the classroom, getting them to really understand what baseball at the high school level is all about and do it the right way.

"I told them from the beginning if they developed a little bit of maturity and did the things the right way, the wins were going to come. And so I think that was a big part of it."

After going an impressive 21-3 last season, Maxwellsaid he knew this Cougars JV team would contend, but he was uncertain if the team would jell.

"I wasn't sure how the pitching was going to be, which turned out to be the best part of the team," Maxwell said. "But I knew this team had the opportunity to be very good, but it's like anything else with any baseball team, it's baseball. So you've got to get pitching, defense and hitting and it all has to come together. And it all seemed to come together at the right time."

Along with its seven shutouts, the Coronado pitching staff -- led by sophomores Clarke and staff ace Cory Ginther (4-0, 50 strikeouts), who was moved up to varsity by coach Mike O'Rourke in the middle of the season -- had four games where it allowed just one run, and three others where it gave up just two runs.

Maxwell thought his staff and the way his team played on the field was the reason the Cougars finished 19-0-2.

"The best part of our game all year has been pitching and defense. They say you win on pitching and defense," he said. "But we have also got a lot of timely hitting. We'll put together a five-run inning and then we'll go a couple (innings) without scoring and then put together another inning, but we definitely won this year on pitching and defense."

Along with that level of pitching and defense, something usually hard to find on the JV level, the Cougars also had no problem putting the bat on the ball, outscoring opponents 263-57 this spring.

Averaging 12.5 runs while giving up just 2.7 per game almost always translates to victories, but Coronado had an impressive statistic in that it scored double-digits on 14 separate occasions this season while not once allowing its opponent to score 10 runs.

At the plate, the team was led by sophomore lead batter and center fielder Ryan McIntyre, who had a .517 batting average and led the team with 31 hits and 29 runs; sophomore first baseman Josh Bryan, (.455, three home runs, 34 RBIs, nine stolen bases), whom Maxwell said "worked harder than anyone else out there;" and Andrew Gans (.474, 12 doubles, 19 RBIs), whom Maxwell said, "... actually ended off the last five or six games batting around .800."

Another player who rose to the occasion for the Cougars this spring was freshman catcher Lucas Stetson (.407), who was forced into a starting role due to some ineligibility issues on the team. Maxwell said this ninth grader was as important as anyone on the roster.

"I was talking with my assistant coach the other day about it, and we could make an argument for him (Stetson) being the (team's) MVP," Maxwell said. "When he found out that he was starting, he really developed into the field general out there as a catcher should be.

"He was a wall behind the dish, didn't let anything get by him, threw runners out. And the great thing about him is he started off being tentative to tell people what to do and then he really took off as a leader."

Along with Clarke, Ginther, McIntyre, Bryan, Gans and Stetson, Coronado's undefeated team also included Brandon Evans (.556), who didn't strike out in 30 plate appearances this season; Tyler Wagner (.512, .638 on-base percentage); Joey Renna (.340), Justin Souza-Grenier (.375); Corey Cohen (.400); Lamonte Kaser (.333); Blake Riley (.455); Joseph Desjardins (.409); Brian Parrish (.368; R.J. Cash (.222); Brady McManus (.348); and Alex Watson.

Besides getting ahead early and then letting its pitching and defense do the rest, Coronado proved it could come from behind if needed as was evident in its two ties this season (Las Vegas, 6-6 on March 20 and Del Sol, 9-9 on April 17).

Maxwell told how those two games -- which ultimately kept his Cougars undefeated -- showed how much intestinal fortitude his young squad really had.

"When the (Las) Vegas game actually ended, there was a passed ball and my catcher ended up getting the ball at the backstop and throwing it to the pitcher and we got the guy out at the plate for the last out of the game," Maxwell said. "If the kid scores, we lose. And it was a ridiculously close play at the plate."

Against Del Sol, in a game which was ultimately called due to darkness, Maxwell said he was forced to gather his team very early and let them know it was up to them to fight back from a seven-run deficit to the Dragons.

"You know how baseball goes -- you sometimes get those games where you don't get a good pitching performance and that was kind of what happened. We were down 8-1 at the end of the first inning," Maxwell said of the game his team eventually tied, 9-9. "So I had to kind of bring the kids up and just say, 'Hey, we've never been in this situation before. Let's see how much heart you have.' "