Drew Marquez was having one of those days, but, like his Rocky Mountain Lobos teammates throughout the 2007 season, he didn’t blink.
Marquez laced a triple to right field Friday in the top of the seventh inning and scored on a wild pitch for the winning run as Rocky Mountain downed defending Colorado champion Columbine 9-8 in the second round of Class 5A Championship Series at All-City Field.
Marquez, battling injuries to both shoulders from diving for balls at his second-base position, had been hitless in eight previous plate appearances as Lobos leadoff hitter on the day, but ripped an offering from Rebels reliever Kyler Brady to the corner in right that a diving Morgan Blatnik just missed stabbing.
It drove in Corey Wood to tie it, then Marquez scored easily on a pitch that bounced in front of the plate and caromed to the backstop.
“I just kept after it and kept some confidence,” Marquez said. “I just got lucky.”
Sophomore right-hander Bryan Peters went the distance for the Lobos, who downed city rival Fort Collins 9-0 in the first round behind freshman left-hander Marco Gonzales. Rocky Mountain (17-5) will play Wheat Ridge (20-2) on Saturday in the winners’ bracket game for the right to roll into next weekend in command of the field.
“We did what we needed to do,” Marquez said.
Back and forth they had gone and Columbine needed just three outs to protect an 8-6 lead into the seventh.
To that point, the top of the Rebels’ order – Jeff Cicchinelli, Pat Geoghegan and C.J. Gillman – was a combined 8-for-8 with four RBIs, three by Gillman.
But D.J. Ozzello opened the final inning with a double and was plated on another two-bagger by Wood.
Marquez’s curving liner and Peters getting Cicchinelli to pop up to second base with a runner on first in the bottom half of the inning ended it.
The Lobos dealt with adversity throughout the regular season and it showed.
“You’re only as good as your next at-bat. You can’t dwell on anything that happened in the past,” Rocky Mountain coach Scott Bullock said. “You have to come to the plate and have a good at-bat.
“It’s really exciting that we’re not finished.”
The Lobos trailed twice but kept coming, Columbine coach Chuck Gillman said, “but they kept battling back. We had our chances.”
For Columbine (16-7), which earlier handled Fairview 6-2, Cicchinelli and Gillman each had two hits.
Rocky Mountain 100 401 3 – 9 11 2
Columbine 004 103 0 – 8 12 2
Rocky Mountain – Marquez 2b 2-1-1-1, Peters p 2-3-1-0, Burns ss 4-0-1-3, Stouffer 3b 2-0-1-1, Kelly 1b 5-0-1-1, Trumper cr 0-0-0-0, Stone dh 5-1-2-0, Ozzello lf 4-2-2-0, Rafiti c 4-01-1, Wunsch cr 0-1-0-0, Wood rf 4-1-1-1, Towne cf 0-0-0-0. Totals 32-9-11-8.
Columbine – Cicchinelli ss 3-2-3-0, Geoghegan cf-3b 2-2-2-1, Gillman c 3-2-3-3, Cunningham 1b 3-0-1-2, Anundsen lf-cf 4-0-1-2, Waldman cr 0-0-0-0, Brady 3b-p 4-0-0-0, Montoya p-lf 4-0-0-0, Tanner rf 1-0-0-0, Blatnik rf 2-1-1-0, Autienrieth dh 4-0-1-0, Varney cr 0-1-0-0, Weibel 2b 0-0-0-0. Totals 30-8-12-8.
E – Cunningham, Peters, Cicchinelli, Towne. LOB – Rocky Mountain 9, Columbine 8. SAC – Geoghegan.
2B – Gillman, Burns, Ozzello, Wood. 3B – Cunningham, Marquez.
Batteries – Peters and Rafiti; Montoya, Brady (7) and Gillman. W – Peters (8-0). L – Brady (3-3). HBP – Peters (by Brady).
