By KAMON SIMPSON
ksimpson@bradenton.com
EAST MANATEE — On his final out, Justin Shafer showed off his glove.
When Braden River’s Mick Olitsky sent a screaming line drive up the middle in the bottom of the seventh inning, it was finally time for Shaffer to use something other than his powerful right arm.
The Lake Wales pitcher snagged the ball just above his shoestrings for the game’s final out, threw his head back and let out a primal scream before pumping his fist and whirling the ball high into the night sky.
It was the exclamation point not only on an upset in the first round of the regional playoffs, a 1-0 Lake Wales victory. It was the final out of a no-hitter.
And just like that, Braden River (23-4), a team that just wrapped up its second consecutive undefeated run through district competition (28 wins in a row and counting), was done for the season.
The Pirates had been one of the area’s most prolific offensive teams all season long, until they ran into Shaffer, against whom they could manage only seven base runners in seven innings — five walks, an error and a hit batter.
“Just a great baseball game; not much you can say,” Braden River coach Ryan Hilton said. “Shaffer did a heck of a job. He was locating all three of his pitches, and he wiggled his way out of a couple of jams.
“When it comes to the playoffs, you’re going to see good pitching. You need to come up with some two-out hits. We didn’t do that.”
It was a solid game on both sides, nowhere more apparent than on the mound, where Shaffer was matched almost pitch for pitch by Braden River’s Marc Monroe, who deserved better. Monroe allowed only five hits and no earned runs, striking out 10 with one walk in the complete-game loss. And, for much of the game, he seemed more dominant than Shaffer.
It was one of those games where “the momentum looked like it was trying to go either way,” Hilton said, and one of those moments came in the top of the fifth, when, faced with runners on second and third and only one out, Monroe worked out of a jam by striking out Daniel Alvaredo and Gerardo Dodomel, whose third swing was so off the mark that the player corkscrewed himself into sitting on the plate, slamming his bat into the turf in disgust.
But the Pirates couldn’t capitalize, and one inning later Lake Wales (11-8) finally managed to break the deadlock with only one hit. After Ryne Knuth led off with a single, Colton Davis put down a perfect sacrifice bunt to move the runner to second.
Problem was, Knuth didn’t stop at second. Braden River first baseman Ryan Grant forced out Davis, then realized too late that Knuth wasn’t bluffing in his turn around second. Grant’s throw sailed over the head of third baseman Stephen Fischer, and Knuth was home with the game’s only run. “That’s something like only our 24th error in 27 games this year,” Hilton said, but acknowledged that this game wasn’t won or lost on a single play. “Mark did a heck of a job on the mound, allowing five hits, no earned runs — that’s a recipe for us to be able to win.”
Except for one factor: Shaffer (8-3), who already had thrown a perfect game earlier this season against Haines City. A perfect game might seem to trump a no-hitter, but “tonight I had better stuff,” Shaffer said.
“My fastball was moving more than usual, and I was hitting my spots with my change-up. And Braden River is a way better hitting team than I’ve played all year.”
At least the Pirates were, until Tuesday night. That they lost to a team that came in only two games above .500 was a surprise to everyone except Lake Wales coach Jasone DeWitt, who has seen enough of his star pitcher to know when he’s in the zone.
“I could tell it as soon as I saw him in the hallway at school early this morning, I could see it in his eyes. I could tell when he got on the bus to come here,” DeWitt said. “He’s pitched some big games for us against some great teams. He’s a gamer. He’s a helluva athlete, and tonight, he was just so focused.”
All the way to the final out.
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