By Greg Macafee

The San Luis Sidewinders avenged their 3-2 2016 state championship loss to the Alhambra Lions with a 12-3 road victory.

Two of Arizona’s best pitchers, San Luis’ Gabriel Ponce and Alhambra’s Jesus Aldaz, shared the mound Friday night. Aldaz had allowed three earned runs this season heading into the championship rematch.

But the runner-up from a year ago tagged the 6-foot, 2-inch right hander early for three runs, as Ponce kept the Lions off the scoreboard the entire night. In San Luis’ eighth victory of the season, the hard-throwing Ponce got his revenge.

In the Division III championship game last year, Ponce scattered five hits over five innings of work. This time, around he only surrendered one hit, and with a big smile on his face, Ponce said he wasn’t going to let a second chance slip through his fingers.

“We had a video from the state championship last year,” Ponce said. “So I think that motivated us, the whole team, to come in here and have success against a good team.”  

Last year, Alhambra senior Aldo Fernandez dueled with Ponce, with Fernandez going the distance, scattering four hits in seven innings while giving up only two runs.

His impressive performance brought the Lions their first State Championship in over 40 years.

But Fernandez was one of seven seniors the state champions lost heading into their 2017 campaign. Alhambra coach Christopher Hoth said that Friday night was a wake-up call for his young team, which is still lacking some intangibles.  

“We’ve had a really light schedule so far,” Hoth said. “We played Campo Verde on Tuesday against another good pitcher, a kid going to GCU (Grand Canyon University). I mean it’s hard for us. We lost seven starters, so we were coming in here with a lot of inexperience. We missed a couple signs, guys at first and second, I lay a bunt sign down and my guy hits the ball to left field. Just things like that trying to move runners over.”

Although the score suggests otherwise, the Sidewinders didn’t walk over the Lions. They scored eight of their 12 runs in the final two innings, when Aldaz was no longer pitching.

San Luis took advantage of Alhambra’s miscues and was able to string hits together at the most opportune times.

In the third-inning, senior Jesus Pulido stroked a ball down the third-base line that kicked up chalk and scored both Ramon Miranda and Daniel Ortega. Three innings later, Aldaz issued free passes to both first-basemen Omar Zaragoza and designated-hitter Omar Campa.

With runners on first and second, Miranda stepped up and drove a ball to the outfield that scored the fourth run of the game and sent Aldaz to the bench.

“Today was execution more than anything,” San Luis Coach Cesar Castillo said. “Getting bunts down, hit and runs, getting guys over when we needed to and then the big hits came today, and to me it was very special to do it off a very good pitcher. He is probably one of the top three pitchers we’ve seen all year, if not the best. So it was special to see how we came out offensively.”

Pulido drove the Sidewinders’ line-up all night with four hits and three RBI’s.

Lead-off man Ramon Miranda finished the night with three runs scored and went 3-for-5 at the plate with an RBI. With the victory, the Sidewinders improved to 8-0 and will take on the Cibola Raiders three times over the span of four-days starting on April 28.

But with close to half the season in the books, Hoth believes that San Luis looks poised to make another state championship run.

“Ponce is a stud,” Hoth said. “They are a very good team, and that kid is going to shut down most teams. But they are pretty tough. It’s going to be tough to beat them.”

Alhambra will take on six teams from the state of Oregon this week as it plays in the Coach Bob National Invitational.

Macafee is a sports journalism student at Arizona State.