ShawneeDispatch.com

Heading into their Thursday double-header against the Turner Golden Bears, the Mill Valley baseball team was winless and unsure of itself.

A young and inexperienced team, the Jaguars were just coming off a 10-0 drubbing by an impressive Bishop Ward squad, and in the first game against the Bears, it was apparent they had yet to fully recover.

With their ace Tommy Fitzgerald on the hill and pitching superbly (one earned run in five innings), the Jaguars should have pulled out an easy victory. But a string of unforced errors (six unearned runs allowed) proved costly, and the Bears capitalized on the way to a 7-3 victory.

"We just did not execute defensively in game one, and were not sharp fundamentally," Jags coach Carl Garrett said. "We struggled at times to make the easy play, and you just can't win games when you give your opponent runs."

So with the stale performance of game one still fresh in their minds and their team morale dwindling, the Jaguars emerged flat to start the second game, and quickly found themselves down 4-0 to the surging Golden Bears.

For five innings, the entire Mill Valley lineup appeared confused at the plate, and although their pitching and defense kept them within striking distance, the Jaguars could not rally a comeback because of their non-existent offense.

Then, just when they appeared down for the count, the Jaguars' bats suddenly came to life. In the sixth inning they manufactured four runs to tie the game heading into the deciding seventh inning.

However, with the game knotted, and momentum at last in the Jaguars' favor, the Bears dug deep and mustered two runs in the top of the seventh to all but squash the Jaguars late-game rally -- or so it seemed.

Only three outs away from their third consecutive defeat, the Jaguars refused to throw in the towel and answered the Bears' call with some late-game heroics of their own.

Juniors Matt Valoff and Matt Westin led off the inning with consecutive singles, and Tommy Fitzgerald followed with a picture-perfect bunt down the third base line. Fitzgerald out-hustled the throw to first and loaded the bases for sophomore Connor Koch.

Koch, the Jaguars most consistent hitter thus far, followed by belting a line-drive double into the outfield gap that scored two, advanced Fitzgerald from first to third and set the table for junior Ryan Gracy.

With the winning run on third and the Jags sitting a sacrifice fly away from scoring, Gracy did his job and sent a fly-ball to center, but it was up to Fitzgerald to beat the throw.

The Bears' center fielder played the ball perfectly and unleashed a bullet to the catcher that reached the plate just before Fitzgerald, but the Jaguars savvy shortstop executed a perfect slide to avoid the tag and score the winning run.

After the game, Garrett said he was ecstatic to see his team get a win under its belt, but he was most pleased to see his young team face adversity like a group of veterans and come away with a win in the clutches of defeat.

"We definitely needed to pull out that second game," Garrett said. "They jumped on us early, but we battled and gave ourselves a chance to win down the stretch, and I am proud of the guys for competing the way they did."

More importantly, the Jaguars took a huge step in mending the fragile team psyche of an unproven club and proved to themselves that they are more than capable of winning in their league, regardless of their inexperience.

"Coming into the second game, we still had a lot of question marks," Garrett said. "And hopefully we answered some of those questions and got a much needed confidence boost by coming together as a team and winning a close game against a solid Turner club."

Also encouraging for Garrett and the Jaguars was the overall performance of the pitching staff that, aside from Fitzgerald, is made up of mostly underclassmen.

Sophomores Trey Scott, Blake Elliott and Shawn Moore were all impressive on Thursday, and they gave Garrett and Jaguar fans reason to breathe a little easier this week.

"Trey threw five good innings for us in the second game, and then Blake came in and made some big pitches for us in the seventh," Garrett said. "Those two, along with Moore, who pitched well in the late innings of the first game, will be crucial to our success this year if they continue to attack the plate like they did in their outings against Turner."

For the most part, Garrett was also happy with his team's toughness and mental fortitude, but he wants to make it clear that there is still much work to be done if they hope to defend their league title.

"Overall, I think we took a step forward, and we had some guys really step up for us," Garrett said. "But we cannot be complacent with our improvement, because we were still pretty mediocre for the most part on Thursday, and there is still plenty of room for us to get better in every facet of the game."