Millennium baseball attacks elimination game in Goodyear
(Courtesy Kevin French/For West Valley Preps)
Millennium baseball sophomores Chase Fillman (#1) and Juan Cuen (#14) celebrate a first inning home run by senior Brady Perrin (#4) during a 6A playoff baseball game against Apollo May 5 in Goodyear.
(Courtesy Kevin French/For West Valley Preps)
Millennium sophomore pitcher Mikey Storz delivers during a May 5 playoff game in the 6A Conference in Goodyear. The Tigers beat Apollo 13-4.
Rather than retreating into its shell when Apollo scored in Tuesday afternoon’s 6A baseball playoff elimination game, Millennium attacked back at its first opportunity.
The visiting Hawks grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first inning, only for the Tigers to answer with three in the bottom half.
No. 13 Apollo rallied in the top of the fourth to cut the home team’s lead to 5-4. No. 12 Millennium almost immediately loaded the bases, and sophomore Juan Cuen quickly unloaded them with a three-run triple to the right field corner.
“I looked to be aggressive early in the count, hit their No. 1 and take advantage of his mistakes,” Cuen said. “It felt great. Our energy was high”
His hit highlighted a six-run fourth inning and Millennium (18-10) cruised to a 13-4 win from there.
The other crucial development was sophomore starter Mikey Storz shaking off the tough fourth inning and giving the Tigers six innings before senior Mason Burns pitched the seventh.
“There’s a couple of signs you’ve got to see in a kid to know they’re a good starter. Today Mikey showed one of those signs, and that sign is that he didn’t have his best stuff today but he still navigated, made pitches when he needed to and competed at a high level,” Millennium Coach and former MLB pitcher James McDonald said. “He saved a lot of arms if we happen to play Saturday after turning around Thursday.”
Storz will be the only pitcher unavailable for Thursday’s elimination game. And the Tigers need every arm they can muster for the toughest possible scenario.
Millennium will travel to top seed Queen Creek (25-4) for the win-or-go-home matchup. No. 8 Mesa Red Mountain upset the Bulldogs 7-5 Tuesday night.
Forged by playing in the brutal Central Region and its trip to the finals of the Boras Classic, Millennium is unlikely to be in awe of the moment at Queen Creek, which is ranked No. 24 in the nation by MaxPreps.
The young Millennium team picked up some battle scars this season.
“We weren’t always like that. I think some lumps along the way taught us how to be resilient. Today the boys showed up and were really resilient. On the base paths we wanted to be aggressive and take risks, and the risks paid off except for one time,” McDonald said.
Cuen drove in the final two runs of the game on a fifth inning single, finishing the night with 5 RBI. Perrin and junior Matthew Nevarez both finished with 3 RBI Tuesday.
Sophomore Kolby Hayward drove in an Apollo run in the fourth and two more came home on wild pitches by Storz. Junior Isaiah Holguin brought home the Hawks first inning run.
Cuen, Perrin and junior Ty Burso each scored three runs Tuesday.
“We finished strong here. We didn’t have the best of starts in our home games but we’ve played pretty good recently,” Cuen said.
Richard Smith Senior News Editor | Glendale & West Valley Preps
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.
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