College of Southern Nevada baseball coach Nick Garritano poses with a Bryce Harper donated bat at Morse Stadium at the College of Southern Nevada in Henderson, Tuesday, March 26, 2013.
Monday, May 22, 2017 | 2 a.m.
The College of Southern Nevada baseball team is back in the Junior College World Series. But it hasn’t come easy — not during the playoffs, or in coach Nick Garritano’s previous seven seasons as he rebuilt the Coyotes’ program.
CSN last played in the 2010 World Series with Bryce Harper leading the way. Shortly after the Coyotes were eliminated in Grand Junction, Colo., Harper was picked No. 1 by the Washington Nationals and coach Tim Chambers left for UNLV.
By time Garritano was hired the following winter the program had lost 20 scholarships for rules violations under Chambers’ replacement. Slowly but surely, CSN dug itself out of turmoil, and finally is seeing the rewards of the trying seasons.
They finished atop the league this year with a 45-16 record, but were beat badly, 17-3, by Colorado Northwestern in the first game of the postseason to fall into the loser’s bracket. CSN then won four straight games to claim the Region 18 tournament title and move on to the Western District Tournament.
There, CSN dropped the first game 15-5 and was again relegated to the losers’ bracket. Once again the Coyotes fought back and won four straight games this weekend to earn their a spot back in Grand Junction at the World Series.
“The resolve, the character and the fight of these kids is unbelievable,” Garritano said. “They have that fighting desire to win when their backs are against the wall. You’ll have to land a bunch of haymakers to knock us out, and you better bury us when you can.”
The Coyotes won back-to-back double-headers on two separate occasions in the last two weeks.
“It’s never the easy way,” Garritano said. “It’s the high blood pressure way.”
The handling the adversity of playing in elimination games could give the Coyotes edge in the World Series, which begins Saturday.
“We’ve played from behind a lot this year,” Garritano said. “The players don’t panic. A lot of times when things are going really well for you all year, there can be panic when things go wrong but that’s not the case with this team.”
Garritano, the former UNLV football player and Green Valley High baseball coach, says bringing CSN back to the World Series has been even more enjoyable because he’s done it with largely local products. On the CSN roster, 19 of the 29 players are from the Las Vegas Valley, including ace pitching Ben Cutting – an Arbor View High product who has recorded 73 strikeouts in 82 innings with a 2.72 earned runs average this season.
“It’s really special knowing the majority of our kids are locals,” Garritano said. “It’s something the valley can really take pride in.”
The Coyotes will take on the winner of the Northern Region in the first round of the World Series this Saturday at 11 a.m.
Ray Brewer can be reached at 702-990-2662 or [email protected]. Follow Ray on Twitter at twitter.com/raybrewer21
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