Advantage: Wildcats

Published 8:47 pm Monday, April 18, 2011

ARLINGTON — First blood to the Archbishop Murphy Wildcats.

Archbishop Murphy moved one step closer to the Cascade Conference baseball title, defeating the Lakewood Cougars 6-1 Monday afternoon behind the pitching of Levi Mavorhis.

The winner of this week’s three-game series between Ar

chbishop Murphy and Lakewood, barring any unexpected upsets in the final two weeks of the regular season, will be crowned league champion. By prevailing Monday the Wildcats need to win just one of the remaining two games in the series to essentially wrap up the league title.

“We knew coming i

n this series was going to decide who won the championship,” said Mavorhis, who tossed a five-hitter. “So we just came out with the mentality that we had to play our baseball, do what we do, keep it close and win it late.

“We have half the job done, we need one more, and it’s going to be tough because they’re a good team,” Mavorhis added. “But we feel strongly that we can take another one.”

Archbishop Murphy and Lakewood came into the week well in front of the pack in the conference standings. The Wildcats were undefeated in 12 league games, while the Cougars had lost only once in nine. Both teams have also finished their series with third-place Cedarcrest, the only other team in the conference considered a threat.

That means Lakewood probably needs to sweep Archbishop Murphy in the final two games of the series for a chance of claiming the league crown. That would give both teams two league losses, with the tiebreaker being determined by head-to-head results.

“I didn’t anticipate that we were going to win a series 3-0, and I don’t anticipate they are,” said Lakewood coach Larry Delaney, who gave full credit to Mavorhis and the Wildcats for Monday’s victory. “We’ll come back and try to get Wednesday’s game and go from there.

“Levi was just dealing,” Delaney added. “It was his game. Sometimes you run into a pitcher who is just on, and he was on today.

Mavorhis’ efforts are the primary reason why the Wildcats find themselves in their favorable position. The big right-hander was the picture of efficiency Monday, needing just 89 pitches — including 59 strikes — to complete the game. He walked just one and struck out eight, including five straight between the second and third innings.

“He was concentrating and focused on every pitch,” Archbishop Murphy coach Stan Taloff said about Mavorhis. “That’s what you have to do at any level. You can’t go out there and just play like you’re used to it, you have to go out and focus every single pitch. I thought Levi did that extremely well today, and he was getting even stronger at the end.”

Mavorhis’ biggest weapon was his curveball, which he was able to throw for strikes at will. That kind of command of an off-speed pitch at the high school level makes a pitcher nearly impossible to beat.

“I located my curveball well, I thought,” Mavorhis said. “It was one of those days where I had all my pitches working for me. It felt good.

“I would start somebody inside, and I had confidence I could come back with a curveball for a strike,” Mavorhis added. “Sometimes you can’t locate it as well and it makes everything else harder, but I was locating it well today.”

For five innings Mavorhis was nearly matched by Lakewood’s Andrew Bean. Bean allowed just three hits in the first five innings, and it was one-run game going into the sixth with Archbishop Murphy clinging to a 2-1 lead.

But the Wildcats used some textbook offensive execution in the top of the sixth to break the game open. After Stephen Carratt led off with a single, Logan Kegley and Zack Elliott laid down perfect sacrifice bunts on the next two pitches. Kegley was safe on a throwing error, and Elliott beat his out for a single, loading the bases with nobody out.

A fielder’s choice grounder by Alex Galgano drove home the first run. Then with two out Trever Morrison and Dan Marshbank smacked back-to-back doubles to right. Morrison chased home two runs, while Marshbank’s plated one as the Wildcats stretched the lead to 6-1.

“Those sacrifice bunts, sometimes those are underplayed in a baseball game,” Taloff said. “We stick the ball pretty well, but in key games like this you have to be able to do all the small things, and I thought we executed the sacrifice bunt extremely well.”

Lakewood opened the scoring in the bottom of the first as three of the first four Cougar batters reached base. Lucas Hawkins scored from third while Kevin Harnden intentionally got himself into a rundown between first and second, making it 1-0. However, Lakewood was unable to get a runner past first base the remainder of the game.

At Lakewood High School

Archbishop Murphy 000 114 0–6 8 0

Lakewood 100 000 0–1 5 3

Mavorhis and Galgano. Bean, Burbee (6), Oppliger (7) and Harnden, Keen (6). WP–Mavorhis. LP–Bean. 2B–Huesers (AM), Morrison (AM), Marshbank (AM), Lawson (AM). Records–Archbishop Murphy 13-0 league, 13-1 ovewrall. Lakewood 8-2 league, 9-2 overall.