For someone who considers himself a football player first, Atticus Enriquez has turned out to be a pretty decent baseball player.
Friday afternoon, the Mt. Carmel High School junior had a single, a double, scored twice, drove in a run with a sacrifice fly and had the defensive play of the game as the No. 5-seeded Sundevils beat seventh-seeded San Ysidro 7-3 at San Diego State’s Tony Gwynn Stadium in the CIF San Diego Section Division 2 title game.
Mt. Carmel (21-12) advances to the Southern California Regionals. San Ysidro finishes 21-13.
Trailing 2-0, San Ysidro struck for three runs in the third. The first two batters, hitting eighth and ninth in the order, reached on infield errors.
Leadoff man Antonio Soto walked to load the bases, but the Sundevils appeared to be out of the inning when Enriquez caught a medium-deep fly ball and threw a bolt to the plate on the fly to nail the runner who had tagged up and was thrown out at the plate.
Armann Robles’ infield single scored a run. Two throwing errors brought home two more runs, but the inning could have been bigger without Enriquez.
“That throw saved the inning,” said winning pitcher Shane Carter. “Those two outs really helped.”
Enriquez said he knew he had a chance to throw the runner out.
“San Ysidro has a lot of fast kids, but I knew I could get him,” said Enriquez, who plans to get an appointment to the Air Force Academy. “I’m not here without God’s help, my coaches and my teammates. This is amazing.”
Carter was making only his second relief appearance. He wobbled in the third, but was strong in the fourth and fifth.
He got the first two outs of the sixth before a pair of San Ysidro hits put runners on second and third.
Isaac Reese came in and got a strikeout to end the threat.
“Really just throwing strikes is the goal,” Reese said. “When we were throwing strikes, good things were happening, so that’s what I was thinking.
“I wasn’t going in thinking a strikeout. I have a good defense behind me so I had all the trust in the defense.”
Nate Godbold scored a run and drove in one for Mt. Carmel. Camden Garver had a two-RBI double.
Armann Robles scored one and drove in one for San Ysidro.
