DENNIS SILVA II | STAFF WRITER
MISSION — The last time his team made the playoffs, Mission High senior Brian Cantu was a freshman. And he wasn’t the ace of the Eagles, he was the right-fielder.
But after a two-year hiatus, the Eagles are back in the postseason, thanks to Cantu’s emergence as a lights-out pitcher and an offense that has woken up at the right time.
The Eagles (11-11) play regional power Laredo Alexander at 7 on Friday night in Zapata for a one-game Class 6A bi-district play-off. They enter as a heavy underdog, but Cantu gives them a chance.
“I just want to make the best of it,” said Cantu, 6-3 with a 1.97 ERA and 49 strikeouts to 16 walks in 42.6 innings. “I feel like the last two years, this team hasn’t had things go the way we wanted them to. But that’s just made us better, and it’s because of that that we’re where we’re at.”
Mission High almost didn’t get here. The Eagles needed a finishing flourish in District 30-6A to overcome McAllen Rowe and McAllen Memorial for the fourth and final playoff spot. The baseball team is the only Mission High boys program to make the playoffs in 2015-16.
“We figured we were going to compete,” coach Rick Lozano said. “Our goal was to make the playoffs, and it’s been disappointing the last two years. It comes down to pitching, and Brian came through big time.”
Mission High won five of its last seven district games after starting 2-3, when they struggled to win games at home and struggled worse producing quality at-bats. But they could make hitters miss, and that kept the Eagles competitive.
“Brian carried us through it all,” Lozano said. “He pitched some great games during district and he was our rock. He carried the team.”
Cantu relies on brilliant breaking ball stuff. He doesn’t overpower hitters as much as he outsmarts them. His go-to pitch is the knuckleball.
“I started practicing it in the summer of my eighth grade year, and ever since then I’ve been throwing it,” Cantu said. “Not a lot of pitchers have it. It throws a lot of hitters off. It’s unpredictable. You don’t know where it’s going. It moves like crazy.”
While other kids were honing their fastball, Cantu admitted it took some time believing in the knuckleball. But it has made him dangerous, allowing him to get ahead in the count and set up his slider and fastball.
“I had my doubts,” Cantu said. “It’s not a popular pitch. But I also know I should do whatever makes me better, and there’s no doubt it’s helped me out a lot.”
Cantu kept the Eagles afloat for most of the season. He had little support until late, and that’s when Mission High took off. No one really knows what the epiphany was. All of a sudden, however, Eagles hitters stopped swinging at bad pitches and started working the count.
“We took it more serious,” shortstop Andy Martinez said. “We would stay longer after practices to work on our hitting. We weren’t doing that in the first round (of district play). Something clicked for us.”
Martinez, hitting .432 with 25 RBIs, led the way. Cris Salinas came through with quality at-bats. Seniors Adan Canizalez and Israel Perez started hitting like Lozano knew they could.
“Our pitching and defense was always there, but the last few years the batting wasn’t,” said Perez, hitting .348 with 10 RBIs. “But the bats showed up. We started getting lots of timely hits.”
Lozano has seen his team come together. Chemistry has never been better, something Lozano said can be credited to the offseason, when a strong freshmen class of nine players “pushed and put pressure on the upperclassmen for playing time.”
The payoff has been realized. For the five seniors on the team, it came in the nick of time. The Eagles are playing their best baseball at the best time of the season.
“We wanted this badly,” Cantu said. “There are a lot of seniors on the team and this is our last year. We wanted to get back in the top four and make it. We did, and there’s a lot more smiles around here.”