The North Fort Myers High baseball team captured its second consecutive district championship Thursday night, toppling the defending state champions Island Coast 13-11 and ending an 18-game losing skid against the Gators. CJ HADDAD

The North Fort Myers baseball team captured its second consecutive district championship Thursday night, toppling the defending state champions Island Coast, 13-11.

The Red Knights (13-14) scratched and clawed their way back from a 7-3 deficit heading into the top half of the fourth, and exploded for six runs in the sixth inning to end an 18-game skid dating back to 2016 against the Gators (23-4) and hoist the FHSAA District 5A-11 crown.

“They weren’t scared to make plays in the big moments,” said first-year North head coach Derrick Conatser of his team’s fight. “A lot of times you’ll see young kids that are afraid to make a mistake. They were throwing punches instead of blocking punches.”

Senior Jake Mueller got the start for a banged-up Island Coast pitching staff that would try and find the hot hand all game. He worked a clean first inning and the stout Island Coast offense got to work.

Isaac Lopez drew a leadoff walk and was moved to second via a Kevin Martinez sac bunt. Senior Emilio Gonzalez laced an RBI double to the right-center gap to score Lopez, and junior Jordi Guerrero followed up in a big way, blasting a two-run homer to dead center field.

Mueller worked around a pair of walks in the second, and North’s Matthew Blasena matched his efforts in the home half of the inning.

The Red Knights offense flipped a switch in the top of the third, as Gianni Lorenzo and Garry Kamphouse singled, setting the stage for senior Blake Busbee to rip an RBI double to the left-center gap. Next, Blasena helped his own cause with a two-run double down the left field line to tie things 3-3.

Island Coast immediately answered, getting three runs back and then some. Martinez led off the inning with a double before Mueller absolutely demolished a fastball for a two-run homer. Gonzalez and Guerrero both walked and moved into scoring position for Mason Blackburn to bring home a run with a sac fly. The Gators pushed one more across when a dropped strike three allowed Davin Hickman to reach first and Guerrero to come home.

The back-and-forth continued into the next inning, as the Red Knights showed some power of their own. Lorenzo (3-for-4, 2 RBI) laced a two-out single bringing Thomas Eisiminger to the plate, who proceeded to blast a home run to left, cutting the deficit to 7-5.

The Gators increased the lead to 8-5 in the bottom of the fourth via a Gonzalez RBI single, and again North answered.

After Dominic Rendon reached with a one-out single, freshman Jakob Wagner (2-for-5, 4 RBI) stepped to the plate and hit a no-doubter of his own, sending a breaking ball well over the left field fence.

“I’m looking to get a pitch out over the dish and hit it,” Wagner said of his approach at the plate. “It’s a great feeling (hitting the home run). It helped get us closer to the lead and we just kept hitting, kept finding barrels. We just got it done as a whole team.”

Red Knight senior Daniel Berkley relieved Blasena in the third, coming in with the bases loaded and limited the damage. He used his off-speed arsenal to keep the boisterous Gator offense in check as best he could.

“I know their weaknesses, and I tried to throw them what they don’t think is coming, and throw strikes,” Berkley said of his game plan.

Berkley worked around three Island Coast singles in the home half of the fifth to set the stage for the offense in the top of the sixth.

The Red Knights sent 11 batters to the plate and tallied six runs in what ended up being the decisive frame of the game. Eisiminger started things with a single, stole second and came around via a Kamphouse single. Busbee then singled himself and Blasena walked to load the bases. Rendon then worked a free pass of his own to give the Red Knights their first lead of the game, but they weren’t done there. Wagner ripped a two-RBI single to deep left to push the lead to 11-8.

“As any freshman will, he had some struggles at the beginning of the year, but he’s as talented as any freshman in the Cape, and I’m glad he’s on our side,” Conatser said of Wagner. “The farther we go into the season, the better he’s getting. And I expect that to keep going for the next three years.”

After the first out of the inning was recorded, Logan Dived walked and Lorenzo drove home two more with a single, making it 13-8.

“Our offense has been good all year,” Conatser said. “We went through a little stretch before the playoffs where we struggled a little bit, and that’s going to happen, but I’ll put our offense against anybody.”

Island Coast showed no signs of quit either, plating three runs in the home half of the inning with a Blackburn single and Hickman two-run double.

It was up to Berkley to preserve the lead in the bottom of the seventh, and he did just that. Mueller ripped a two-out double to perhaps bring on some dramatics, but a pop out to shallow right field ended the game with Kamphouse making the catch while falling backwards.

“Everyone doubted us,” Berkley said of heading into the game versus Island Coast. “We knew we could do it. I feel we’re every underrated. Everyone thought (Island Coast) had it, but we never thought that they did.”

Of Berkley, Conatser said: “We’re just trying to throw someone out there that could keep them off-balance. A lot of pitchers have too much pride to take speed off their pitches, they want to just throw everything by everybody. Berkley, out of everybody on our pitching staff, he understands how to pitch, how to take off from his fastball, how to take off from his breaking pitches. And against a good offense like that, that’s what you got to do. It was his game, win or lose. It was going to be his.”

While the loss is certainly hard to take, Island Coast will still find its way into the state tournament, which starts next week. Head coach Clint Montgomery said sometimes, it’s just not your day.

“We had some chances to make some pitches, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to give the credit to (North), they hit the baseball, it wasn’t really a defensive collapse or anything like that,” Montgomery said. “We stated that we’re going to run a lot of different arms out because of the situation we’re in with injuries, but they made the good swings and seemed every ball found a hole, and we’ve done that to a lot of teams this year ourselves.

“Our guys battled and fought, and sometimes you just lose. You can look for everything you want. I probably made a bad coaching decision (sending a runner home), I got caught up in the emotion. It is what it is. It stinks. Coming into the game we feared that they could score some runs and we hoped we could score, and we did, just not as many as they did.”

The FHSAA State Tournament bracket will soon be announced. North is projected to have a tough match-up in the opening round against one of the state’s best.

“Glad that we got the win,” Conatser said. “On to Tampa Jesuit, which is a pretty big consolation prize there — No. 1 in 5A in the state.”

— Connect with Associate Sports Editor CJ Haddad on Twitter: @haddad_cj