Jason Lashley’s bat and Ethan Mattison's complete game send Park Vista to state semifinals
LAKE WORTH — Reserve the buses and book the hotels because Park Vista baseball is headed to Fort Myers. The Cobras are only two victories away from hanging the Class 7A program’s first state champion medals around their necks, punching the ticket with a 3-1 region title win over Jupiter.
Fans, friends, family and foes from teams eliminated from the road to state came in droves to spectate the duel between a deep Warrior rotation, highlighted by seniors Zach Lebenson and Jaxon Inouye, and Vista junior Ethan Mattison, who threw a complete game in front of the full house.
Now, the Cobras are due to face Plant (20-7) at the Lee County Sports Complex’s Hammond Stadium on Tuesday at 4 p.m.
Vista coach Larry Greenstein commended Jupiter (17-8) on being a ”first class group” and “a great job” from three-time state champ Andy Mook. Niceties aside, the goal of the game remains: to win a state championship. That’s according to Greenstein, hopeful that this sixth trip to the final four will be the one that breaks what the admittedly “superstitious” manager swears isn’t a “curse.”
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“All I kept saying was ‘It’s time, it’s time.’ On the walk to the mound, the realization set in that we legit have a shot at winning,” Mattison said.
Sitting between 86 and 88 miles per hour, topping out at 89, Mattison limited the Warriors to just one run for senior Ryan Senecal on three hits for the club. Of 26 batters faced, he walked two and struck out six.
“I was pacing back and forth in the dugout ready to go,” Mattison said. “I knew it was my game to win.”
“I think today was probably the biggest game of his life,” a prideful Greenstein said of Mattison.
An inning before junior Anthony Espinoza’s RBI brought home a triple from JoJo Calise capped scoring in the fifth, what was a one-run tie flipped in Vista’s favor thanks to a base-hit from senior Jason Lashley to score a leadoff double for sophomore Will Bavaro.
The duo Bavaro-Lashley also combined in the first inning to put Vista on the board.
Bavaro’s two-for-three performance for two runs on a pair of doubles upped his team-leading batting average to .449 ahead of facing the Tampa-based Panthers in state semifinals.
“The excitement level is extremely high,” Lashley said.
Lashley went three-for-three, registering two RBIs on two hits. You could barely tell the Indian River State commit was one of 12 Vista seniors who had to be up at 4:45 a.m. to get their caps and gowns ready for graduation.
Having two major milestones of the high school experience made Tuesday’s win that much more special. Yet, the day as a whole was that much more stressful.
“I know I just reached an amazing accomplishment academically, but I was pretty much thinking about the game later the whole time,” Lashley recalled.
”It’s always been a goal of mine since freshman year to make it to states and I know the rest of the seniors have had the same goal since day one so it means a lot,” Lashley said.
As Vista continues its push for a historic season, Greenstein hopes the years of postseason experience for Cobra upperclassmen will “overcome the nerves.”
“It's a different when you're playing for a state championship, like this is big, but then you get there, and you look in the stadium, and you go, ‘Wow.’ It's overwhelming sometimes. Hopefully, them being the mature, senior-oriented group they are, they'll handle it.”
“We’ll see what happens.”
Emilee Smarr is the high school sports reporter for the Palm Beach Post. She can be reached via email at esmarr@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Park Vista baseball defeats Jupiter to win region title, advance to state
