Steve Stockmar

West Valley Preps

CAVE CREEK - Playoff baseball has every element: tough pitching, big innings, and one team huddling up afterward in tears.

It was all of that Wednesday in Cave Creek when the 5A state baseball tournament opened with the (now) traditional play-in round, pitting the 23-seed Willow Canyon Wildcats against the 10-seed Cactus Shadows Falcons.

The Falcons balanced stellar starting and relief pitching with a couple big innings to run their winning streak to nine in a 9-1 victory, which sends them to Saturday’s 16-team bracket.

Willow Canyon, meanwhile, saw its season come to a halt.

They dug a 5-0 hole early but never stopped swinging the bats to cap a season that saw the team clinch consecutive state tournament berths for the first time in program history.

“We lost a game, but at the end of the day with our seniors we’re losing brothers,” Willow Canyon second-year head coach Orlando Rodriquez said afterward, after the Wildcats took a very long postgame huddle filled with heartfelt words, hugs and tears as they walked off the field for the last time in 2019.

We’re wishing them luck in their next chapter in life. A chapter closing, and next year we have to work twice as hard and fill those shoes and hopefully get back into the play-in playoffs and make a run.”

The Falcons found themselves up 5-0 after three innings, and got the biggest boost from junior starter Wyatt McLaughlin. By the time the righty exited to applause with two runners on base in the top of the sixth, he was spinning a three-hit shutout, including taking a no-hitter into the fifth.

“(He) set the tone for us in the first four innings,” Cactus Shadows head coach Gaetano Gianni said. “He threw real well, which is what we needed out of him.”

Although Willow Canyon eventually got a run around in the inning, Cactus Shadows relief man Ethan Bell struck out two to snuff out a rally before it got a chance to get going.

“Playoff time, even a five-run game to me is not a big lead,” Gianni said of the late-game pitching change that paid off. “We’re gonna keep a short hook on all these kids, and we’ve got guys in the dugout who can throw the ball well. We had full confidence in (Ethan). It’s playoff baseball.”

Bell would strike out the final Willow Canyon batter an inning later to clinch it.

Not that the Wildcats went quietly.

Trailing by five, Willow got back-to-back hits on Xavier Churchwell’s single and a double by Matt Carter to get something going. Taylor Wurtele’s fielder’s choice ground out would bring in the Wildcats’ only run of the afternoon.

Things got out of reach for good in the home half of the inning.

Cactus Shadows pushed four runs across the plate in the inning, and the Wildcats weren’t helping their own cause. The inning featured one of three Willow fielding errors on the day, and two of the runs in the inning came around off wild pitches to put the play-in game on ice.

The Falcons advance to the 16-team bracket as the state tournament starts in earnest at the site of the higher seeds this Saturday. The 5A state championship will eventually be May 14 at Tempe Diablo Stadium.

Gianni said he’ll keep things “light” with the team until Saturday, with a focus on team-building, batting practice and ground ball work.

“At this point if they don’t know our plays and they don’t know what to do on the field, we’re in trouble, right?” he joked.

Willow Canyon turns its own focus toward giving returning pitchers a month off before throwing programs start in June, along with summertime weight training programs just around the corner.

“The future is promising,” Rodriquez said. “Seeing the boys competing and understanding that what we’re doing every year is building the foundation to our Willow culture, which is our family.”

Editor’s note: Reach Steve Stockmar at sstockmar@newszap.com, or follow him on Twitter @stevestockmar