A-West baseball overcomes scare, early deficit on Day 1 of state tournament

LAKEWOOD — Junior Cooper Vais and Arvada West’s defense slammed the door shut on Pine Creek late-afternoon at Keli McGregor Field at Blue Sky All-Star Park.

Vais had 11 strikeouts while retiring Pine Creek’s final 20 batters in a row to finish out the complete-game victory on the mound. A-West took a 9-2 victory to automatically advance the top-seeded Wildcats (24-3 record) to the Final 4 of the Class 5A state baseball tournament next weekend. 

A-West is currently on a 22-game wining streak.

“We are exactly where we want to be,” A-West coach Danny Vais said of the Wildcats in position to take the driver’s seat in the double-elimination state tournament. “Who knows what tomorrow (Saturday) entails. Whoever we play will be hot too. We’ve got to make some pitches, play some defense and most importantly just keep swinging the bats. It’s hard to lose a game when you are scoring 8 runs per game.”

A-West will face No. 3 Regis Jesuit at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, May 23, at All-Star Park. The Raiders defeated Mountain Vista and Legend on Friday at All-City Field.

“Our magic number has been two since the beginning of the week,” A-West senior Brayden Reiner said of getting the two victories to advance to the second week of the state tournament. “We got that. If we can get that win tomorrow it would be huge. We have been hoping to be in the position all season.”

Pine Creek (22-5) did put A-West in a rare position it has been in this season, facing a deficit. The Eagles took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning after a single by junior Jake Holm and RBI triple by senior Kyle McDonnell. 

It was the first time all season that Vais had given up two earned runs in an inning.

“Honestly, it was just get zeros after that. Get outs,” Vais said about McDonnell scoring on a passed ball to give the Eagles the early 2-0 lead. “I had to just attack the zone and trust my defense. I had to go to some different pitches. They were just sitting on my fastball. I had to switch to my cutter.”

Vais struck out the next six Eagle batters and didn’t allow a base runner for the remainder of the game. The University of Texas-commit induced four fly-ball outs, six ground-ball outs to go along with the 11 strikeouts.

Senior Keegan Millikan — plays shortstop when Vais is on the mound — was a perfect 4-for-4 on plays to spearhead the defensive gem by the Wildcats.

“I think that is the one thing that is overlooked about our team is how good defensively we are,” Coach Vais said of the Wildcats’ defense. “Between Brayden and Cooper the punch out so many guys.”

A-West’s offense answered Pine Creek’s 2-run first inning in a hurry. Reiner led off the bottom half of the frame with a double. It began a 3-run inning for the Wildcats.

“That first at-bat I just had to set a tone and get us going,” Reiner said of his lead-off double. “It worked out pretty well. We were just able to chip away.”

A-West got an RBI single by senior Cameron Thornton in the third inning to push the lead to 4-2. Thornton delivered again with an RBI single in the fifth inning and Reiner roped a 2-run triple in the gap to put A-West up 7-2 through five innings.

“We hit from one to nine,” Coach Vais said of A-West putting up nine run on nine hits against Pine Creek. “We just hit from all over the place. We are a really, really good team and try to keep pushing this thing forward.”

It looked like A-West might take a step backward in its state tournament opener earlier in the day against Jeffco rival Chatfield. Reiner got the start on the mound, but left the hill after getting hit by a line-drive off the bat of Chatfield junior Keir Traurig with two outs in the top of the third inning.

“It was a little scary, obviously,” Reiner said of taking the line-drive off his pitching arm, something that happened earlier this season. “First thing I thought was, ‘Is my season over?’ I just got the adrenaline going and pushed through it.”

Senior left Cole Eisenreich relieved Reiner after he took the ball off his right forearm. Chatfield sophomore Luke Shepard drove in the Chargers’ lone run in the third inning with an RBI double. Since Reiner was listed as the pitcher/DH on the line-up card he actually never technically was taken out of the game.

Reiner batted in the fourth inning and had an RBI single to extend the Wildcats’ lead to 5-1. He went back to the mound in the top of the fifth inning and finished the final three innings.

“I’ve been coaching him since he was 10 years old. That dude is a killer. He is a fighter,” Coach Vais said of Reiner. “Nothing fazes him and he stays even keel.”

Reiner threw a total of 89 pitches to improve to 10-0 on the mound. He also caught the entire second game against Pine Creek with Vais on the mound.

“I wasn’t surprised by their (coaches’) choice actually. They believe in me a lot,” Reiner said of coming back on the mound against Chatfield. “I was hoping they would put me back in.”

Sophomore Holden Goodrich had a 2-run home run and solo home run against Chatfield in the eventual 7-1 victory. 

The Chargers (14-12) will face Fairview in an elimination game at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, May 23, at All-Star Park. If Chatfield gets past the Knights, it would play Legend in another elimination game Saturday at All-Star Park before the Regis vs A-West game.

“Tomorrow is a huge, huge game,” Vais said of the 2:30 p.m. game against Regis (21-6). “We have to grind it out tomorrow.”