Defending champ CDO shakes off recent struggles, rolls past Foothills

Canyon Del Oro’s baseball team jumped out to a four-run, first-inning lead against Catalina Foothills on Friday afternoon and went on to beat the Falcons 11-5 on senior day.

The victory helped the Dorados, ranked eighth in Division II, bolster their postseason résumé and bounce from a surprising loss at Casa Grande Vista Grande earlier in the week.

“It’s big,” CDO coach Keith Francis said. “We kind of painted ourselves in the back of a corner. We need all the wins we can get for the ranking purposes.”

Junior pitcher Michael Santorelli threw a complete game for the defending state champion Dorados, who hadn’t had a well-pitched game in almost two weeks according to their coach.

“It was a big game for us,” Santorelli said. “We knew we had to beat them and beat Ironwood Ridge to stay in this thing and get a top seed.”

The Dorados (20-7 overall) close out the regular season at rival I-Ridge on Tuesday, where a win would guarantee them a week to prepare for their first playoff game.

The 24-team Division II state tournament opens April 30, with the top eight seeds getting a first-round bye. Twelfth-ranked Foothills will be a lock to host in the first round by winning their final two games, against Glendale Kellis and Mountain View.

CDO recently lost senior ace and first baseman Carter Kahn for the rest of the season, after he re-aggravated a back injury from two years ago. That’s been a factor in the struggles on the mound, Francis said, so it made Santorelli’s strong outing even more noteworthy.

“It helps us a lot, in a lot of different ways from the mental aspects of it and the physical aspects of it,” Francis said. “Now I have some healthy pitchers and hopefully we can get back in it.”

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CDO got right to it on Friday afternoon.

Senior third baseman Mason Gavre hit an RBI single and sophomore Tyler Porter drew a bases loaded walk to score CDO’s first two runs. The Dorados pushed their lead to 4-0 with an RBI sacrifice fly by Cody Aquilana and a passed ball.

Foothills got on the board with two runs in third but Gavre drove in two of his own to put the Dorados ahead 6-2.

“It’s a competitive rivalry and it was good to get a win against them,” Gavre said.

In the fourth, Porter picked up another RBI and Gavre knocked a ball into right field that was dropped allowed two more runs to score.

Then in the sixth, with the game already in hand, CDO scored two more runs on two sacrifice flies, including one by Gavre.

A teammate gave Santorelli a little ice water bath when he was being interviewed after the game.

“We’ve been playing a little bit sluggish,” Santorelli said. “but we knew we had to come out today and really put it on, so we did.”