Heading into Friday night’s Orange Belt Conference championship baseball game, Harmony coach Heath Williams said his team would have to play its best game of the year if his Longhorns were to have a chance to end Osceola’s dominant run of three consecutive crowns.
Williams got that effort and more, as Harmony used some clutch hitting and a tremendous relief performance by senior right hander Caden Scarborough for a 5-4 win over the Kowboys and claim their first OBC baseball title since 2014.
“Tremendously proud of this team right now,” Williams said after the game. “We have struggled at the plate most of the season, but we were able to barrel up some balls tonight, especially early in the game. The fast start was certainly a key to the game and then when things got tight at the end, Caden just did what we needed him to do.”
The Harmony bats came alive early. In the first inning, Samuel Castillo ripped a double to the left-center gap and Jhon Peralta drove him in with a sharp single to left and would move to second on the throw home. Iziah Santiago followed with another hard single and the Longhorns grabbed a 2-0 lead.
They extended the lead to 4-0 in the second on RBI singles from Yathniel Matos and Nate O’Neill. Harmony started the game young, with four sophomores, two juniors and a freshman in the field, a factor not lost on Williams. “Despite missing our top hitter in Cade Walter (knee injury), we are starting to get some younger kids stepping up,” he said.
Osceola cut the gap with two runs in the bottom of the third as Terry Cruz walked and Nick Palmi was hit by a pitch. Both players would come around to score on Jason Ramos’ two-run single. But an unearned run by Harmony in the fourth pushed the lead back to 5-2.
With runners on second and third and one out, Palmi made it a 5-3 game with a sacrifice fly, but Harmony relief pitcher Ismeal Rivera got out of the inning without further damage by getting Luis Rodriguez to line out to right.
The winning moment likely came in the bottom of the sixth, when Osceola loaded the bases with no outs against Rivera. Jansel Nieves walked and Cruz singled, then Palmi loaded the bases with a bad hop single to third to chase Rivera from the game. Scarborough relieved, and was called for a balk to score Nieves. Scarborough then walked Ramos to load the bases again with no outs.
But he followed that by striking out Luis Rodriguez and got Raul Ramirez to ground into a 4-6-3 double play to end the threat. Pitching with some confidence at that point, Scarborough breezed through the seventh by inducing three consecutive infield groundouts to end the game.
Harmony pounded out seven of their eight hits in the first two innings. Osceola had nine hits and had five walks but stranded 10 runners on base.
“Was a little surprised how they jumped on us early, but that’s a good team that beat us tonight,” Osceola coach Scott Birchler said. “The bottom line is we certainly had our chances tonight and couldn’t capitalize. When we needed a big hit, we failed to get it. They also made some good plays on some hard hit balls.”
Although it was Harmony’s second win over the Kowboys and clinched the OBC crown, these teams have not seen the last of each other this year. The teams are scheduled to play a regular season game next Friday night at Osceola. In addition, a new alignment has both teams in Class 7A, District 9 with Celebration, Tohopekaliga and Poinciana, meaning they could also meet in post-season play.
Harmony went to 8-8 with the win and will play at Merritt Island on Tuesday before traveling to Osceola on Friday. The Kowboys (10-6) will play state power Montverde Academy (14-1) at home on Tuesday before the Longhorn rematch.
In Friday’s third place game, Celebration (9-4) defeated Poinciana, 10-2. Cody Bergeron, Javier Alcantara and EJ Rivera each drove in two runs and Bergeron and Jesus Torres combined on a three-hitter in the Storm win.
