Posted: Sat, 29 May 2010 07:46 AM - 12,187 Readers

By: Danny Davis

The Lake Travis Cavaliers must really like playing on Saturday.

A run scored on a wild pitch in the top of the eighth inning Friday, giving the Cavaliers a 2-1 regional semifinal win over Corpus Christi Moody. The win set up a winner-takes-all Game 3 today .

Lake Travis has had three of its four playoff series decided in a third game.

"We've got all the confidence in the world that we can beat them," said Cavaliers pitcher Jason Harris, who allowed four hits over eight innings.

After getting three hits in the first seven innings, Lake Travis used eighth-inning singles by Alex Levine and Cody Christensen to put itself in position to win. The hits put runners on first and third base with two outs. Moody pitcher Chris Navarro then threw a wild pitch, and Levine easily scored .

"Ever since I got on, I was thinking we had to score because we have the defense and the pitching to win it," Levine said. "(When I scored) I was like, `We got this, we're going to Game 3.' I was really pumped."

Lake Travis took a lead in the fourth on a triple by Brad Kuntz. Leading off with an 11-pitch at-bat, Wyatt Church got on base with a walk. After Grant Gibbs popped up , Kuntz drove a Navarro pitch into deep center field to score the game's first run.

Navarro managed to strand Kuntz at third base, and Moody's senior pitcher evened the score in the bottom of the inning with an RBI single.

Lake Travis opened the fourth with walks to Moody's first two batters. Smiley Zapata, the inning's leadoff hitter, overslid third on a steal attempt and was tagged out by Lake Travis' Kevin Conroy. Had Zapata stayed on the base, he could have easily scored a few pitches later on Justin Perales' flyout to right field.

Conroy's tag was one of several key defensive plays by Lake Travis . Church had two diving catches in center field and left fielder Levine threw out a Trojan at second in the seventh. "I give all the credit in the world to my defense," Harris said. "They were the true stars of the game."