-Blade Central Arizona College Baseball Beat

(Grand Junction) - In the end, it was the pitching. 

Now, for the five previous games, it was the pitching AND the hitting. AND the defense.

But in this title game, there was timely hitting, solid defense as usual, but shutdown pitching. Shane Spencer started the final game, as he did last year, and Drew Sommers closed it out. Both shutdown performances.

Wow.

Spencer, Tyler Woessner, Tyson Heaton, Matt Wilkinson?

Shutdown. There's just no other word.

The Central Arizona College Baseball Vaqueros won the JUCO National Baseball title again Saturday night, the second time in three years, with a 4-2 win over Cowley Community College of Kansas. Dusty Garcia homered in the bottom of the third to put Central ahead 4-2, and there was no more scoring after that.

Cowley's two pitchers were completely in command from there out also. Grant Adler gave up two earned runs and struck out seven in 5.2, and reliever Miguel Fulgencio (watch for him up there in the bigs somewhere) pitched a hitless two innings, so you'd think that was good enough. Pitching was a complete matchup, a pitching duel. That is why this was the best baseball game of the tournament. 

Central lost their first game and went on an incredible run. They won by winning their last five games. 

This was going to be a great story for Cowley if they had won, as they also had lost their first round game. It truly was the best baseball game of the tournament, maybe not the most exciting, but truly the best game because you just knew these really were the two best teams in this ten team tournament, because both teams' pitching stood out. Cowley was seeded seventh, Central was seeded sixth, and the #1 and #2 seeds went very far in this tournament, but seeding all these teams was really a "pick names out of a hat". It was really one big guess.

The team that won was the team that played the most complete baseball in every single game. This coaching staff got the absolute best out of every single player that stepped on this field this past week. You saw it the entire week.

Head Coach Anthony Gilich.

The NJCAA Assist Coach of the Year Joe Perez.

Assistant Coach Isaiah Overman.

Pitching Coach JoJo Howie.

-Hats off to 2022's top two baseball coaches. CAC's Anthony Gilich and Cowley's Darren Burroughs.

There are some 400 JUCO baseball programs out there and to be the last two?

Central caught a very big break in the bottom of the first when a grounder to second was misplayed with the bases full, and Jaylin Rae and Kiko Romero who had each singled, both scored giving Central a 2-1 lead. Cowley tied everything with the all-important quick answer in the top of the second on a homerun that got out in a hurry from their centerfielder and leadoff man Bryce Madron.

It was a shot.

Central then had their answer with a little help in the bottom of the second, Trey Newman singled through the left side, and with two outs and Newman running, a fairly deep fly ball from Rae popped out of an outfielders glove and Newman scored easily, giving the Vaqueros a 3-2 lead. Garcia's homerun made in 4-2 in the bottom of the third.

All zeros from there to the end.

"Clean baseball. That's what we want, that's what we preach every day." said head coach Anthony Gilich.

Central Arizona College had the best fielding precentage of the tournament, by far the best team ERA, while having only the seventh best team batting average. 

Seventh best? That's all?

BUT!!

The Vaqueros blasted eighteen homeruns, the most by far of the tournament, that seemingly tied, or put the Vaqs ahead at important times in these games. When you do this, you deflate opponents. There is no statistic for that.

At the JUCO World Series is where it becomes so obvious you have to have lots of GOOD pitching for these marathons. And you need catching to orchestrate the whole process. Newman caught every single inning in the post season and threw out his first nine batters including the Regionals and District, and the first four of the JUCO before everyone stopped running. Central's team ERA was 4.07, that's four runs a game, and they gave up five runs in the first game only. 

That's incredible, for a short porch, aluminum bats, wind blowing out a LOT, and six games in seven days. Cowley had the tournaments second best ERA at 6.94, and the tournament average ERA not including Central, was a little over ten runs per game. To boot, these two teams played more games than the other eight.

Romero, who tied a World Series record with six home runs in the tournament, was also named the outstanding hitter of the tourney and to the all-tournament team along with teammates Newman, Garcia, Sommers and Woessner.

That performance from Woessner to get Central to the title game was a complete men from the boys. 

Look, where do you stop? Spencer was brilliant in his three appearances, Heaton might fall through the cracks, because his sparkler was early. Same with Wilkinson.

If you just knew how hard this squad worked all year. It would be difficult to write and put into words to detail it, I stop short at War And Peace. They work on minute things for hours at McSwain Field and the knowledge of their competition is about as complete as it can be in this baseball world.

And lastly, think of the magnitude of this statement: The absolute best out of every player in the JUCO World Series.

That is what Central Arizona College got.