Gators, Nannini win battle with Gorman

Green Valley vs Bishop Gorman.

This matchup between Southern Conference powers has been as anticipated throughout the valley as a heavyweight boxing match. Friday, it was finally time to rumble.

The Gators, despite a shaky performance from ace Mike Nannini, defeated Gorman 3-0 in the Southern Zone semifinals at UNLV to earn a berth to the state tournament next weekend in Reno.

Gorman faced Cimarron-Memorial in the night cap for the south's second seed in the tournament. The winner of this game will face Green Valley in today's zone championship game at 10 a.m.

"Nannini didn't have his good stuff today, but he found away to get the job done," Green Valley coach Rodger Fairless said. "We found away to play and score some runs."

The Gators only managed to get three hits, but still got the win. GV scored all three of its runs in the sixth.

Freshman Garrett Guzman started the rally with a no-out pinch hit single to center. Richard Chatiwn ran for Guzman and was sacrificed over to second on a Kyle Reed bunt.

John Slack kept the inning going with a walk which lead to sophomore outfielder Dave Krnyzel. Krynzel singled to left to score Chatwin and when Slack was trying to go all the way around from first to third, the Gorman throw sailed into the Green Valley dugout.

This allowed Slack to score the Gators' second run and move Krynzel over to third. Ben Scheiss grounded out to score Krynzel and put Green Valley up for good 3-0.

"He's (Krynzel) the one we depended on today," Fairless said. "On any given day, we ask every to step up and do that. It was his turn to step up today." Gorman gave the Gators a lot to handle.

In the third inning, Nannini walked the lead of hitter and then hit Gorman's Dallas Pollero with a pitch to put runner on first and second for Jason VanMeetren, arguably one of the top hitter's in the valley.

Nannini got VanMeetren to foul out to first base for the first out of the inning. Ryan Lee was next for Gorman and he hit a towering shot to deep centered the was ran down on the warning track for the second out. After Nannini walked Gorman's Nino Mantico to load the bases, he got Brandon Boesch to fly out to first to end the inning.

VanMeetren doubled of off the wall in left-center in the fifth inning for one of four Gorman hits in the game. In earlier action, Cimarron used a 12 strike out performance from junior Mike Espotito in eliminating Durango from the tournament 2-0.

archive