Canyon View baseball cruises to first Arizona 5A final

By Richard Smith
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MESA - Except for an early hiccup, Canyon View baseball was on a glide path toward its first state title appearance early Wednesday night.

Buoyed by four Vail Cienega throwing error, the top seed jumped out to a 5-0 lead after two innings. Canyon View (30-4) won 8-0 and celebrated, though not uuproariously.

This young program did not get its varsity start until 2021, thanks to the COVID-19 canceled season, and made the 5A quarterfinals in 2021, 2022 and 2023. From the jump this year, the Jaguars believed they were the top team in 5A, and played like it.

“We’ve prepared to be here. It’s finally our time. We’ve been a work in progress each and every year, ever since I’ve been here and we’re taking those steps,” senior center Colin Mowrey said. “We belong here and we’re not really too worried of who we play. We’re ready to play.”

Senior leadoff hitter Brock Berlan doubled in the first inning and scored on a throwing error.

Mowrey started off a big second inning with a leadoff single and dashed all the way to third base on an errant pickoff throw.

“I knew he had a pretty good fastball, but I like offspeed so I just sat on the offspeed. I stayed inside to take everything up the middle,” Mowrey said.

Senior Carter Radwanski walked and junior outfielder Uziel Viramontes drove both in and later scored on another throwing error.

He's new to the starting lineup, after senior Ethan Santoyo tore his ACL in a May 8 win against Tucson Catalina Foothills.

And Viramontes is still fairly new to the Canyon View story, moving in from California a year ago.

“I knew he was going to throw me fastballs. The 7-8-9 were getting fastballs and I was ready for it,” Viramontes said. “We settled down once we scored those runs.”

This was Cienega's first semifinal appearance since 2010.

While Coach Nick Swanson celebrated the win, he felt for his opposite number.

“I feel bad for Cienega. That was Kelly Johnson’s last game coaching. He’s a good friend of mine and it’s a tough way to go our. I’m glad we won, obviously, but I do feel bad for him. They were really struggling playing defense, so we wanted to make them play defense, bunt and tilt the field,” Swanson said. “Since we were down two starters, we had to be a little more creative tonight.”

Star sophomore infielder Ricardo Yuriar also went down in the Catalina Foothills game. Swanson said he has a grade three ankle sprain, and his status for the title game May 20 against #3 Centennial (23-9) remains up in the air.

Ever with Viramontes in and freshman Mattox Murray on in place of Yuriar., Canyon View did not commit an error. Defense was Swanson's biggest concern entering the playoffs.

“The last three weeks, the defense has improved so much. It’s really because of coach Enrique, our infield coach. He works so increadibly hard with our infielders,” Swanson said. “He’s such a great coach, not just from a technical standpoint. He really fills them up with confidence.”

Canyon View's only concern Wednesday at Hohokam Stadium was the injury to senior pitcher Landon Hood, who took a single off his leg.

He recovered fine to pitch 6 2/3 innings of shutout ball with 12 strikeouts.

“It was important that we went out there and checked on him. He got hit by a really hard pitch right in the calf, and it started to bulge on him a little bit. He’s such a competitor. It would take something so drastic for him to come out of the game. Once he settled down, he was great again,” Swanson said.

Richard Smith
Senior News Editor | Glendale & West Valley Preps

rsmith@iniusa.org

Richard Smith has been with Independent Newsmedia since 2016, and worked at a Sun City-based news outfit covering the Northwest Valley for 22 consecutive years.

An NAU alum and lifelong Arizona resident, Richard began as a copy editor and page designer at Surprise Today and the Daily News-Sun, then rekindled his love of sports writing by taking the reins on West Valley Preps in 2008.

For most of the mid-2010s he was the Surprise editor and West Valley Preps reporter. Now he’s the West Valley Preps Editor and Surprise Associate Editor.

As COVID restrictions slowly lift, Richard is cautiously optimistic he will visit book stores, football fields and gyms again this fall.