If you look hard enough beside the definition of “Cinderella Story” you may just get a glimpse of the 11U Doritos.
On Tuesday, the Doritos found themselves playing for the Richmond City Baseball championship on a beautiful evening at the hallowed grounds of Gibbons Park.
The Doritos had opened the season with six straight losses. Four of them by one run. The players led by— coach Andy Ohara — never gave up. They practiced hard and stayed positive as a group. And boy did it pay off.
Their first victory of the season came in a tournament over the Mother’s Day Weekend. A one run win of course. This propelled the team to a semi-final appearance that ended in a loss to The Smurfs whom they would match up with again weeks later for the playoff title.
The Doritos rolled through the round-robin play with a 3-1 record to advance to the quarter-finals.
This is when the magic really happened.
The Undertakers poured in six runs in the top of the seventh inning with the Doritos finally turning to Owen Lee, whom has been their steady starting pitcher all season, to close out the final few batters.
It came down to what most thought would be their final at bats of the season. The problem is no one told the Doritos that.
After a few hits and walks, it was newcomer Connor Newton who stepped in and crushed a bases clearing triple to the fence to lead the Doritos to a miraculous seven-run come back for a 17-16 extra innings win.
The next day the Doritos turned to their ace Jack Bello to shut down the Blue Blazers. He did not disappoint the cheering crowd.
With the game tied at 2-2 in the fourth inning, speedy Wyatt Ellison stoked the Doritos to a lead with an inside the park home run. Bello proceeded to strike out 12 batters over four innings of work reaching his maximum pitch count of 75.
But, in true Doritos fashion the game took a dramatic turn with two outs in the bottom of the sixth. Up by two runs, Jack Schwartz stepped up for the Blue Blazers and smacked a two-run inside the park home run to tie the game and send their supporters into a frenzy.
The Doritos then scored two runs in the top of the seventh on key hits from Kane Ohara, Bello and Colton Lexier.
Tommy Groumoutis was called in from the bullpen. With one out and two runners on, the Blue Blazers hit a single up the middle.
With the runner rounding third, Ellison and Bello made an incredible relay throw to catcher James Withers who slapped the tag on at the plate to cut down the tying run. Gromoutis struck out the final batter for an unbelievable 6-5 win.
Another back and forth championship game proceeded to unfold with some solid defence and base running from Paul Groumoutis and Marcus Santos.
The Doritos penciled in the crafty lefty Brayden Seto to battle against the hard-hitting Smurfs.
The Smurfs’ Jake Parnell broke open a one-run game with a two run blast over the left field fence in the fifth inning.
The Doritos were down to their final at bats of the season, again, trailing by five runs.
Assistant Coaches Pedro Bello, Brent Lexier and Richard Seto got the players together to get their rally caps on to fire up the team and the crowd.
Lucas Chinn started off the inning with a base hit, followed by an Owen Yan walk. A couple of walks and hits later, the Doritos found themselves down by one with the bases loaded.
Withers then cracked a walk off double to the gap for a 13-12 victory to cap what was surely the wildest playoff run in RCBA history.
The Doritos were supported by truly the best fan base a team could ask for.
