Expanding the Class 5A Southern Region baseball tournament to 12 teams — to be played over the course of two weeks — allowed teams that advanced to the second weekend to reset their pitchers’ pitch count for the event.
Centennial, less than 24 hours after losing to Bishop Gorman in a winners bracket final on Thursday night, took full advantage of the reset for its ace and secured a spot in the state tournament.
Senior Dominic Tiberi threw a complete game with five strikeouts, which helped Centennial, the Sky League’s No. 1 seed, secure a 5-1 win over Palo Verde on Friday night at Durango in the losers bracket final.
The win punched Centennial’s ticket to the 5A state tournament, which begins Thursday at Las Vegas High as the South’s second representative.
The Bulldogs (26-10) also advance to Saturday’s 5A Southern Region title game to play Bishop Gorman at 10 a.m. Saturday at Durango to determine seeding for the tournament.
“We’re extremely excited,” Centennial coach Chris Martinez said. “This whole tournament, we’ve done a really good job of staying calm and concentrating on one game at a time.
“Super proud of these kids and so happy for all of them and all the work they’ve done to have an opportunity to extend their season another week.”
Since Gorman has not lost in the double-elimination, Centennial will need to beat Gorman twice on Saturday to get the region title and South’s No. 1 seed in the state tournament.
The tall task of Saturday wasn’t on the minds of the Bulldogs, as they celebrated reaching the state tournament for the fifth time in program history (first since 2016) as they seek to win their first state title after being a runner-up four times.
“One of the big talks was not just making a playoff run, but a deep playoff run this year,” Martinez said. “That’s been the focus in the clubhouse with the kids with our standards and everything.Getting to that region championship (on Saturday) is a reflection of the hard work.”
Tiberi’s only blemish was a solo home run from Palo Verde’s Kyle Johnson in the top of the second inning. That cut Centennial’s lead to 2-1. Then things got tight in the sixth and seventh innings.
Palo Verde (27-9), trailing 5-1, loaded the bases in the sixth with a pair of singles and a hit batter. Tiberi buckled down and struck out Owen Anderson with the bases loaded and got Matthew Simmler to ground into a fielder’s choice to end the inning.
Things were tight again in the top of the seventh as Palo Verde loaded the bases again to set up the middle of its lineup. But Tiberi struck out Karsen Smaka (who hit two home runs in an earlier elimination game Friday) and forced Keimani Johnson to fly out to deep center field and secured the win for the Bulldogs.
“Every time (Tiberi) is on the mound, we feel we have a shot to win,” Martinez said of Tiberi, who threw 6⅔ scoreless innings in Centennial’s 5-0 win over Faith Lutheran on May 2 earlier in the tournament.
“He battled. It’s a very good offense over there (at Palo Verde) that he just faced. He minimized them, commanded his pitches and gave us a chance. We played defense behind him. We believed in him. He did more than we could even imagine.”
Centennial went ahead 2-0 in the first inning when Kane Barber, with the bases loaded, beat out a double play to score Chase Hurley and Jaxson Burr later scored on a wild pitch.
The Bulldogs did more damage in the third inning with two outs as Aiden Keehan and Trevor Henson had back-to-back RBI hits and Andres Soto ended the inning with an RBI single before he was caught in a rundown between first and second.
Barber, who was the 5A Mountain League pitcher of the year last year and has dealt with an injury, will throw the first few innings in the first game for Centennial. Martinez said with the reset of the 150-pitch (and 11 inning) limit resetting after five days of rest, the Bulldogs still have several arms in the bullpen they could throw at Gorman.
“We kept everybody on their same schedule, so it worked out perfect,” Martinez said. “Being able to have your top arms going two, three games in a row, it’s a huge advantage.”
Gorman defeated Centennial 8-4 on Thursday in the winners bracket final.
Earlier on Friday, Palo Verde, the Mountain League’s No. 3 seed, scored five runs in the fifth and sixth innings to defeat Arbor View, the Sky League’s No. 2 seed, in an earlier elimination game to get a crack at Centennial. Arbor View finishes 30-8.
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.
