Jayce Galvez is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Marcos de Niza High School for AZPreps365.com

TEMPE - The Marcos De Niza baseball team fell to Mesquite High School after failing to finish a comeback on Wednesday.

In a hard-fought game, the Mesquite Wildcats came on top after scoring eight runs in the final inning to make the final score 11-6. The previous inning, the Padres were up 6-3 after trailing 3-2.

“For six innings, we were a really good baseball team, and we fought, and we stood together, and in that one inning it went back to the old ways, and we became individuals, instead of a team, and that’s what came back to bite us,” Padres head coach Matt Courtney said.

In the end, coming back from being down 3-2 still says something about the team. They held their ground on defense, but couldn’t hold on the whole game.

“The hard part is, this is a seven-inning game, you have to win every inning, and unfortunately, it got away with us in the top of the seventh,” assistant coach Jesse Chavez said. “It shows that we do have some fight in us to battle this team twice, losing to them Wednesday, Monday, to come back and battle them again, so taking a lead in the sixth. Shows that we do have some fight, we just gotta keep building on that.”

For the Wildcats, they have been in need of a win after letting go of a lead. The team had an eight run seventh inning rally, led by senior Cruz Lantz who led the game with three RBI’s.

“The comeback in the last inning, we’ve been on the other side of that numerous times,” Ryan Lantz, the father of Cruz Lantz, said. “It's good to see the bats come alive and get some runs together and win a game.”

Despite giving up the lead, the Wildcats showed great strength to get back up. 

“Some resilience, which we haven't seen a bunch of this year, so it was great to see it today,” Ryan Lantz said. “Good to see everybody aggressive on the baseline, and it was an exciting game.”

For the Padres, despite it being their fourth loss in a row, the potential to win more games is still there, but they must continue to improve on their mistakes.

“Just continuing to grind,” Courtney said. “So we gotta cut down the mental errors. To cut out the walks, and, you know, just finish a ball game. Play a complete ballgame, once we do that, I think this team can be special. We have a tough schedule going forward, but as long as they can stay together and continue to fight, I think we'll have a chance.” 

On the winning side, Mesquite is hoping to continue its two game win streak and show consistency throughout a whole game. 

“I would like to see some more of these W's, not getting hits in the sixth and seventh inning, closing games out,” Ryan Lantz said.

The Padres drop to 7-10 and will take on the Cactus Shadow Falcons in their next game on Tuesday April 7 at 3:45 p.m at home. 

The Mesquite Wildcats get their fourth win of the season, their second against the Padres, making their record 4-12-1 and will play Estrella Foothills today at 7 p.m.