SUNRISE BASEBALL: Green Valley’s Maningo makes Cougars pay with walk-off hit

An intentional walk brought Green Valley’s Drake Maningo to the plate with a runner in scoring position and one out in the bottom of the seventh inning Saturday.

As baseball players often do, he took exception to that.

Maningo lined a curveball into left-center field, and Brandon Bayne scored from second base to give the Gators a 6-5 walk-off victory over Coronado in the championship game of the Sunrise Region tournament at Las Vegas High. The win gave Green Valley a berth into next week’s state tournament.

“I guess they didn’t think I was good enough,” said Maningo, who also hit a leadoff double in the sixth inning. “That was fine with me. I got a curveball low and just tried to put the bat on the ball to hit it somewhere, anywhere.”

The day did not start as planned for the Gators, as starter Blake Inouye allowed a leadoff walk in the first inning. The Cougars took advantage, as Sterling Saltz followed with an RBI double down the right-field line to give his team a 1-0 lead.

Green Valley coach Corey Gehlken said he was not too discouraged.

“(Inouye) was able to stop the bleeding, so it wasn’t too bad,” Gehlken said. “The way we’ve been swinging the bats this week, I wasn’t too worried about one run.”

His confidence was rewarded in the bottom of the first when Green Valley scored four runs on five hits, chasing Cougars starter Sean Hofmans with no outs.

Steven Gengo came on in relief for Coronado, pitching six strong innings. The Cougars offense, meanwhile, chipped away at the deficit with two runs in the third to make it 4-3.

Green Valley got an insurance run in the fourth, but an error and Jacen Yergensen’s RBI single allowed the Cougars to tie it at 5 in the fifth inning.

Inouye settled down and did not allow a serious threat in the final two innings.

“He pitched the first game and the last game (of the tournament),” said Gehlken, who noted that Inouye tossed four strong innings against Las Vegas in the tourney’s opener. “He’s been a true leader for this team.”

When the Gators failed to score after loading the bases with no outs in the sixth, Inouye promised his teammates he wouldn’t allow the Cougars to score in the seventh in exchange for a guarantee that his offense would put a run on the board in the bottom of the inning.

Ty Burger responded by leading off the seventh with a single off Coronado reliever Zach Dunham. A.J. Amelburu was intentionally walked two batters later, setting up Maningo’s heroics. Pinch-runner Bayne scored from second on the single.

Jarrett Perns went 3-for-4 with an RBI to help Green Valley.

Saltz went 3-for-4 to lead Coronado, and teammate Donte Glover was 2-for-4.

Coronado (19-16) plays Sunset Region runner-up Arbor View (25-10) at 3:30 p.m. Monday at Desert Oasis for the final berth at state.