DENNIS SILVA II | STAFF WRITER
CORPUS CHRISTI — It was theirs, and then it wasn’t as one inning determined Hidalgo’s fate on Saturday.
Holding a two-run lead, Pirates senior ace Oscar Noguera surrendered four runs on five hits during the sixth inning and what had been a dominant Hidalgo offense through its undefeated postseason was nowhere to be found as El Campo rallied for a 5-3 win in the teams’ Class 4A regional final at Cabaniss Field.
The Pirates ended their season in the Elite 8 for the second straight year and finished 25-6-1. Each time they finished one game shy of making the state tournament.
“It finally caught up to us,” Hidalgo coach Karlos Carrasco said. “It was one bad inning. But that’s baseball. That’s just the way it is.”
Noguera, entering the game with a 13-1 record and 0.84 ERA, rolled through the first five innings before encountering trouble in the sixth, which El Campo (29-6) began with two singles, a three-run triple, a two-run double and a walk before recording its first out.
“I was just throwing fastballs and they were finding the gaps,” said Noguera, who faced 10 batters in the frame. “They got to me. I was feeling good, but they got the hits. They kept swinging and they kept finding the room.”
Noguera was more perplexed than fatigued. Rarely had an opponent solved Noguera on the mound, and he was determined to return the favor.
It never happened.
“I wanted this one so bad,” Noguera said. “I wasn’t going to come out. Knowing how close we came last year (a Game 3 loss to Sinton), I was going to leave it all out there. We just came up short.”
Noguera — who struck out eight, walked three and allowed 10 hits in seven innings — had surrendered just 43 hits and 10 earned runs in 83 innings this season. Because of that dependability, Carrasco only briefly considered removing his star pitcher.
“It crossed my mind,” Carrasco said. “But I talked to him and he said he was fine. He told me he was barely getting going. I trust him.
“He’s gone the length for us every game he’s pitched. He’s tough as nails and you can’t take that away from him.”
Noguera’s teammates certainly never lost faith.
“We were telling him to get his head up,” junior outfielder Daniel Espinoza said. “We’ve been down in games before in these playoffs and came back to win, and we were telling him that. Oscar’s our guy. We wouldn’t have wanted anyone else out there.”
After a two-run lead turned into a two-run deficit, the Pirates got something going to start their half of the sixth inning after Dylan Dougherty led off with a walk and Mike Alvarez followed with a single (ultimately Hidalgo’s final hit of the game).
But Alvarez was caught stealing, Allan Wilburn grounded out and Adrian Ruiz flew out to end the threat.
“It could have been a momentum-changer, but we still had the runner (Dougherty) at second base,” Carrasco said. “I told the kids before our turn at-bat, it would be one base at a time, one out at a time.
“The whole way, we felt we were just one hit away from opening the floodgates.”
A Pirates offense that averaged 9.1 runs in going 7-0 this postseason before Saturday was held to four hits, three of those coming in a three-run second inning that saw Hidalgo jump to a 3-0 lead behind Ruiz’s RBI single and Espinoza’s two-run double.
Hidalgo struck out only three times, but was not patient (three walks) and swung early and often.
“Four hits in a game, giving up five hits in an inning. That’s not us at all,” Carrasco said. “It’s not. We just didn’t take care of our opportunities.”
Hidalgo tried to become just the third Valley baseball team since 1980 to make it to the state tournament. These Pirates featured 10 seniors, many of whom have been part of 81 wins over the last three seasons.
While the seniors reminisced and enjoyed teammates’ company one last time after the game, the juniors and underclassmen soaked it in.
“We just have to stick together,” Espinoza said. “Everybody needs to remember this feeling. Everybody needs to work harder.
“This is not the way you want to end your season.”