Detroit Western’s pitching arsenal displayed its ceiling by shutting down No. 2 Macomb Dakota in a doubleheader sweep May 10 in an MHSAA baseball showdown at Memorial Park in Royal Oak.
Juniors Damian Ybarra and Johan Villarreal held Dakota to one run on five hits to secure a 2-1 win for No. 18 Western in Game 1. Villarreal gave up two runs in the first inning of Game 2, but senior Daniel Crosby tossed five scoreless innings with only one hit allowed in the 6-2 victory.
“With those three guys, I know we can compete with anybody in two games in a doubleheader,” Western coach Juan Sanchez said. “Those three guys were phenomenal today. They have been like that all year.”
The first game of the doubleheader between the two top-20 teams in Division 1 turned into a pitcher’s duel. Western struck in the top of the first after a double from Norberick Garcia, who eventually scored on a wild pitch. Dakota evened the score in the second on an RBI single from Jacob Gjonaj.
Ybarra made it through the third inning before leaving the mound due to tightness in his arm. Villarreal walked the first two batters he saw, but escaped thanks to a bullet throw from Ybarra in center field on an attempted sacrifice fly to keep Dakota from taking the lead.
Villarreal only gave up one hit over the final three innings and scored the winning run in the fifth. He reached on a walk, and then scored from first on a single from catcher Alessandro Lopez and a throwing error.
“Just attacking the zone,” Villarreal said. “Getting really early into counts, controlling what I do and controlling the batters — that was the main thing. Just putting them in my hands and getting them guessing.”
Villarreal started the second game but got tagged for two runs in the first inning thanks to a pair of walks to Dakota’s Dylan Beitelshees and Andrew Borowicz, who scored on an RBI double from Brady Hamby.
Western got one run back in the bottom of the second after Emilio Zuniga reached third after getting hit by a pitch, and then scored on an errant pickoff throw to first base. Crosby replaced Villarreal in the third inning and had a quick, flawless inning to begin his day.
He gave up his only hit on a single from Hamby in the fourth, but Lopez threw Hamby out trying to steal second.
From there, only one more Dakota batter, London Leidlein, reached base on a walk. Crosby relied primarily on his breaking ball early until he got a feel for his fastball in the final innings.
“My offspeed,” Crosby said about what worked. “My catcher did a really good job of looking at the hitters and seeing what we could work and couldn’t work.”
He had four strikeouts through five innings while trying to pitch to contact.
“In my opinion, we have the best defense in the state,” said Crosby. “I just have to pitch to contact. Those guys got my back.”
Western broke the second game open in the bottom of the fourth with a five-run inning. It started with the Nos. 7-9 hitters, with two reaching base on a walk and a single. Garcia drove in one run with an RBI single, followed by a two-RBI double from Justin Diaz. Julian Contreras put the finishing touches on the inning with a two-run inside-the-park home run.
“Today’s difference is our bottom of the lineup,” Sanchez said. “When they can figure out a way to get on base and give us quality at-bats and get to the top of the lineup, we are pretty tough to beat.”
“Every pitch matters,” Dakota coach Angelo Plouffe said. “Every situation matters. If you make a mistake to a good team, they can beat you. That’s what happened. The mistakes we made, they capitalized.”
Western is looking to build on the doubleheader sweep heading into the Public School League championship May 19 and districts against Grosse Pointe North after that.
“We try and play the best teams that we can in the state,” Sanchez said. “The schedule prepares us for what’s coming up in the next couple of weeks, but this is huge for us confidence-wise.”
Jared Ramsey covers high school sports for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at jramsey@freepress.com; Follow Jared on X or Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: MHSAA baseball: Detroit Western 3-man pitching staff shuts down Macomb Dakota
Reporting by Jared Ramsey, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
