Queen Creek wins 3rd straight elimination game to reach 6A semis

Top-seeded Queen Creek won a third straight game out of the 6A losers' bracket, beating Mesa Red Mountain 9-2 on Tuesday, May 12 to avoid elimination and advance to the 6A baseball semifinals.

The Bulldogs got home runs from David Howard, Diego Armenta and Frank Gearhart to end Red Mountain's season. Gearhart and Howard each drove in three runs. Gearhart added two doubles.

Queen Creek (28-4) will face defending state champion and No. 4 seed Tempe Corona del Sol on Friday, May 15, at 4 p.m., at Mesa's Hohokam Stadium.

Meanwhile, No. 2 Casteel saw its season end in a 12-3 loss to Phoenix Sandra Day O'Connor, which had put the Colts into the losers' bracket last week.

Pitcher Tommy Pascanu again pitched the Eagles past Casteel (22-9) a week after a 3-0 win over the Colts. This time, the left-hander worked 5⅔ innings, giving up six hits and two earned runs, striking out six.

Clayton Sheets hit a grand slam during O'Connor's eight-run third inning. Brent Sollars added a two-run homer in the inning.

No. 10 O'Connor (25-9) will take on No. 3 Chandler Hamilton (20-9) on Friday at 6:30 p.m., at Hohokam in the later semifinal.

The state championship game is May 19 at 7:30 p.m. at Tempe Diablo Stadium.

In the 3A playoffs on May 12, Chandler Valley Christian and Yuma Catholic both won the first games of a best-of-three semifinal series at Diablo Stadium. Valley Christian defeated Kingman 10-0 and Yuma Catholic beat Phoenix Northwest Christian 12-0.

Left-hander Cameron Bergloff struck out 10 batters and walked one, giving up three hits in four innings for Valley Christian. Bergloff also hit a double and drove in three runs.

Erik Topete had three hits and three RBIs and Daniel Ruiz hit a three-run homer to lead Yuma Catholic, which got one-hit pitching from Jose Alatorre in the five-inning, 10-run rule game.

Valley Christian and Kingman will meet again on May 14 at Maryvale Park at 6:30 p.m. Yuma Catholic and Northwest Christian will play the 4 p.m. game on May 14 at Maryvale Park. The championship game is May 18 at Diablo at 4 p.m.

Richard Obert has been covering high school sports since the 1980s for The Arizona Republic. He also covers Grand Canyon University athletics and the Arizona Rattlers. Please sign up for newsletter.