Sidewinders sent to losers' bracket

 SURPRISE - The San Luis baseball team is certainly no stranger to adversity.

 The Sidewinders lost key players from their roster before the season began, placed third in a region of four teams, needed the last day of the season to secure a playoff berth and faced an uphill climb as a No. 12 seed in the 5A Division II state tournament.

 Now, if San Luis is going to continue its Cinderella run to a state championship, it's going to have to do it in familiar fashion - the hard way.

 No. 1 Peoria-Sunrise Mountain scored 10 runs in the middle innings to turn a tight game into an 11-1 setback for San Luis in the quarterfinals Saturday at Surprise Baseball Complex.

 The Sidewinders now move into the losers' bracket of the double-elimination tournament and will shoot for a spot in the semifinals again in an elimination game against Desert Ridge or Willow Canyon Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Phoenix Municipal Stadium.

 "Not being able to make the plays in the middle innings is what killed us," San Luis coach Cesar Castillo said. "In the fourth inning they scored three unearned runs and that didn't help. We couldn't play defense and we made too many mental mistakes. You give any team in the playoffs a second or third chance they're going to take advantage."

 With the score 1-all in the bottom of the fourth, San Luis was called for interfering with a runner advancing to second on a bunt, and he was awarded third. Sunrise broke the tie with an RBI ground out, and then a double steal and an error - all with two outs - set up two more runs.

 "We believed that we needed to put guys in motion, put pressure on their defense and the situation called for it," Sunrise Mountain coach Eric Gardner said.  "That's what our gameplan was. Early in the game we just didn't have runners to do it. I felt if we could ever get in a situation with runners in motion we could cause them to be disruptive a little bit."

 San Luis ace Heriberto Ron lasted 4 1-3 innings, allowing five runs - two earned. He was relieved by Alberto Vizcarra, who was ejected in the sixth inning when he was hit by a pitch during an at-bat. Vizcarra threw his bat in he direction of the dugout, but the Sunrise catcher walked in the way,  and the bat struck him in the back of the leg. He was not injured.

 Because of the ejection, Vizcarra will not be eligible to play in Tuesday's elimination game.

 "He wasn't retaliating. He was just upset that he got hit and the catcher came out, but it cost us," Castillo said. "He's one of my go-to guys and then I had to go to some young kids who have no experience. Against a good club like this, we obviously couldn't go with the bullpen that we had."

 Three of the first four San Luis batters got base hits to start the game. Joel Gamez's line-drive single to left plated Vizcarra. Then Sunrise Mountain starter Kyler Hopper settled down and faced the minimum over the next four innings.

 "The irony of that is he wasn't even supposed to be our starter today," Gardner said. "Woody Nisbet, the guy who was supposed to start, came down with the flu in the last 24 hours. So this morning when we were taking batting practice we told Kyler he was pitching. He's kind of a slow-starter guy that we have to be patient with. But once he settled in with his off-speed pitch he got a lot of ground balls."

 The first seven Mustangs reached base in the sixth against San Luis' inexperienced bullpen, with five coming around to score for the run-rule.
 Gamez went 2-for-3 for San Luis, while Vizcarra and Joe Andrade had the other two hits.

 AJ Robinson went 4-for-4 with a pair of RBI and runs scored for the Mustangs.

 "Now we have to scrap. We've got to come out of the loser's bracket on Tuesday," Castillo said. "If we see (Sunrise Mountain) again, I'm sure we'll play them much tougher."

 This is the third straight season Sunrise Mountain has reached at least the semifinals. The Mustangs lost in the championship two years ago and the semis last season. Sunrise is ranked No. 17 in the nation by maxpreps.com.

 "With having 11 seniors this year, we expect nothing less than (a state championship)," Gardner said. "Now we're set up where somebody has to beat us twice next Thursday, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's San Luis again because they're a gutty group."