Green Hope makes NC history in national baseball tournament

Green Hope baseball established some North Carolina history in the seventh annual National High School Invitational despite falling one victory shy of the title.

Green Hope finished as the national runner-up once the Falcons lost 9-3 to Lutheran of Orange, Calif., on Saturday at the USA Baseball Complex that is just a couple miles down the road from the Green Hope campus.

Green Hope is the first North Carolina team to reach the final, but that’s only one piece of history. The Falcons also are first Tar Heel state team to win an opening-round NHSI game. Green Hope defeated No. 33-ranked Walton of Marietta, Ga., in Wednesday’s game, 7-1.

The Falcons followed with an 8-3 quarterfinal decision over Mountain Ridge of Glendale, Az., and a 1-0 semifinal victory in 11 innings over John Curtis Christian of River Ridge, La.

The 16-team USA Baseball-sponsored event invites nationally prestigious programs from Florida to California along with teams boasting Major League Baseball draft prospects. The other nationally ranked team the Falcons faced was No. 27 Lutheran, which won the NHSI for the second straight year.

“We had to play near-perfect baseball to beat these guys,” Green Hope coach Mike Miragliuolo said. “They’re a great team up and down the lineup. I don’t think we beat ourselves, but they had some balls drop in the fourth inning and things rolled their way. We hope this we can set the stage to make a run the rest of the year.”

Green Hope’s Jordyn Adams was the Falcons’ draft-prospect attraction, although the Falcons’ center fielder is committed to North Carolina in both football (wide receiver) and baseball.

Lutheran features 10 players signed to college scholarships along with first baseman Cole Winn as a top draft prospect. Nevertheless, the game was scoreless through three innings. Green Hope starter Elmo Arimurti had held Lutheran hitless, but he had walked two batters and hit a third, so once he allowed a one-out walk in the fourth, Miragliuolo pulled him.

Winn, who finished 2-of-3 with three RBIs, met Kohl Abrams with a double. Four more singles, a hit batter and a throwing error allowed the California school near Anaheim’s Disneyland to take a 5-0 lead.

After Lutheran extended its lead to 6-0 in the top of the fifth, Green Hope responded with a three-run rally in the bottom half. Liam McHale led off with a single, Joseph Nunn singled and Johnathon Ankner’s double scored McHale. Kevin Pitarra’s single scored Nunn and advanced Ankner to third. Ankner came home on Connor Knapp’s ground-ball fielder’s choice.

“Green Hope had an amazing week,” Lutheran coach Eric Borba said. “We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Those guys play the game the right way. It would have been easy for them to fold when they were down 6-0, but they came back and put some pressure on us.”

Lutheran pushed across three more runs in the seventh as Green Hope used five pitchers to exhaust its pitching staff.

In other Green Hope highlights from the week, Liam Norris was 3-of-3 with two RBIs to beat Walton, Adams was 3-of-4 with three runs scored and an RBI to top Mountain Ridge and pitchers Angel Collazo and Joey Hegeman combined to blank Curtis. Collazo threw 3 2/3 innings and Hegeman 7 1/3.

This story was originally published March 31, 2018 at 11:19 PM with the headline "Green Hope makes NC history in national baseball tournament."