New York Life Palm Beach Gardens
PALM BEACH GARDENS -- After Palm Beach Gardens' baseball season ended one game short of the state tournament last year, a half-dozen players joined Division I programs and longtime coach Joe Russo retired.
Everything pointed to a rebuilding job for new coach Matt Judkins and a rare down season for the Gators.
Except nobody told the players.
"There was no doubt in my mind we were going to do well," third baseman Josh Hogue said after driving in the go-ahead run in the sixth inning of the Gators' 8-2 victory over Vero Beach in a Region 3-7A quarterfinal game Tuesday night.
Palm Beach Gardens (19-7) now is only one game away from matching the star-studded 2021 team's playoff run, advancing to a regional semifinal Friday at home against West Boca Raton (18-10).
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The second-seeded Gators broke a 2-2 tie with a six-run sixth inning, capped by a three-run homer by AJ Hunerberg. The seventh-seeded Indians finished 18-7.
Here are three takeaways from the game:
1 . Unlikely ace
Robbie Throop spent most of the 2021 season on the bench, watching future college pitchers Dominic Stagliano, Tobin Moran and Cade Bush lead the Gators to a regional final. Throop pitched a grand total of seven innings.
Going into this season, Judkins knew that pitching was the team's big question mark. He said he needed someone to step up.
Throop, a senior right-hander, answered the call. He picked up his county-leading 10th victory Tuesday night (against two losses) by pitching into the seventh inning against a strong Vero Beach lineup.
Throop was pulled after throwing 100 pitches, five short of the state-mandated limit, and Billy Reid came on to get the last two outs.
"He didn't want to come out," Judkins said. "He never wants to come out. He'd have thrown 150 pitches if we'd let him."
Although not overpowering, Throop limited the Indians to just an infield single through the first five innings. Vero Beach tied the score with two runs in the sixth, when Throop said he "couldn't throw my curveball for a strike."
In addition to wins, Throop leads the county in innings pitched (69 1/3) and complete games (four).
2 . Late breakthrough
With the Gators' deep lineup, Judkins says it's usually just a matter of time before they put together a big inning.
Vero Beach right-hander Travis Camp kept Gardens in check for five innings, giving up two unearned runs while working his way through the lineup three times.
On the fourth time through, however, the Gators capitalized on an error to break the game open. With runners on first and second and two outs, Hogue lined a 3-2 pitch to right-center to score the tiebreaking run. After Jayden Hylton was hit by a pitch, Blake Matthews belted a two-run single and Hunerberg followed with his home run over the left-field fence.
Because of the error, all six runs in the inning were unearned.
"We were saying in the dugout, 'Let's make them pay for their mistakes,'" Hogue said.
3 . Tough end for Vero
Coach Bryan Rahal thought the Indians had the momentum when they rallied to tie the score in the top of the sixth on an RBI grounder by Harry Taylor and a run-scoring single by Ryan Brown.
"We felt good in the dugout," Rahal said. "Travis was doing a good job against a great-hitting team. But we knew coming in that they were capable of having big innings."
Vero Beach committed three errors, all of them leading to Palm Beach Gardens runs. The tone was set in the first inning when leadoff hitter Reid reached on a fielding error and eventually scored on a wild pitch.
"In the playoffs, you've got to play great defense," Rahal said. "We didn't play our best defensive game."
The Indians were eliminated in the regional quarterfinals for the second year in a row.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach Gardens baseball beats Vero Beach in first-round matchup
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Source: https://news.yahoo.com/palm-beach-gardens-baseball-breaks-042227586.html
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