Mesquite turned on the power game, took advantage of a couple Gilbert miscues and rode that combination to an 8-4 win over the host Tigers and the championship of the Scottsdale Quarterback Club Baseball Invitational.

Mesquite smacked three home runs and Gilbert two as the game's run total were all scored in the final three innings.Mesquite's Lane Doty went 3-for-4, inlcuding a two-run homer that capped a three-run seventh to give the Wildcats a cushion heading to the last of the seventh.

"I don't want them to think we're a home-run hitting team," Mesquite coach Jeff Holland said. "I like the hard ground balls and the line drives. But we'll take it."

Two of the big hits for Mesquite (5-1) came from twins Casey and Jake Howard. Serving as a pinch hitter and designated hitter, respectively, for the day, Casey Howard ripped a two-run homer to cap a three-run fifth that put the Wildcats in front 3-0. Teammate Matt Poterson started the inning by breaking a 0-0 tie with a solo homer to right. Jake Howard delivered a tie-breaking double in the sixth.

"They (Howard's) are our twin towers," Holland said. "They made me look good today."
 

Gilbert (4-3) caught long-ball fever in its half of the fifth getting back-to-back homers from Drew Stankiewicz and Greg Esquibel, two more hits and two wild ptiches that led to a 4-3 lead for the Tigers after five.

After that hits kept coming for Mesquite (five) and two errors haunted Gilbert tin the sixth and seventh. The errors cost the Tigers four unearned runs.

A dropped fly in left field in the sixth led to two runs that put Mesquite ahead to stay, 5-4, on Jake Howard's double. A dropped throw at first allowed Mesquite its first run in the seventh. The top of the seventh should have been over without the drop and only one run scored. The extra out gave Doty a final at-bat and he lined a two-run bomb to right.

"We battled back," Gilbert coach Matt Gutierrez said. "We're capable of doing that, and putting up runs. We've made some great defensive plays. Right now at times we're having trouble playing catch."