PSAL SEMIS

Walton 11

Adams 3

Yensy Carty told people before the season that this would be Walton’s year. He was met with nearly unanimous disbelief.

“People said, ‘Yeah, what about Monroe? What about the other teams that win all the time?’ ” Carty said. “I told people, ‘Just wait.’ ”

The Wildcats have thus far proven Carty right. He drove in three runs yesterday as eighth-seeded Walton advanced to Wednesday’s PSAL championship game at Yankee Stadium with an 11-3 win over No. 13 John Adams to take the best-of-three semifinal series, 2-0, at the College of Staten Island.

It will be Walton’s first appearance in a baseball title game, but it was something that head coach Joe Alvarado saw coming. He turned down a job as an assistant principal at Truman during the middle of the school year to stay with his team.

His decision has been worthwhile – never more so than yesterday.

The Wildcats started to break the game open with four runs in the top of the third to go up 5-0, and eventually went up 11-0 before Adams touched up Juan Cuevas, who came in after starter Edward Nunez injured himself in the fourth, for three runs.

After the game, the largely Dominican Wildcats celebrated in the dugout, chanting a sentence in Spanish that roughly translates to, “Bubble gum and lollipops, Walton is the champs!”

Carty, the nephew of former big leaguer Rico Carty, said it was a traditional phrase after teams won in his native Dominican Republic.

“I’m not sure how this is supposed to feel,” Carty said. “But I know we kept our word. We’re going to the Stadium.”

It’s a far cry from the state the team was in when Alvarado took over the program a decade ago. The previous coach had left and if Alvarado hadn’t taken over, there was a chance the team wasn’t going to make it.

“People had gotten fed up with not having a field at the school and dealing with the hassles,” Alvarado said. “I was the only one who would take it.”

Alvarado hadn’t played much baseball himself, after moving from Puerto Rico to New York before high school. He was actually more of a volleyball player.

“They weren’t picky,” Alvarado said of the school officials who tabbed him. “They just wanted someone who would do it.” Still, Alvarado had no lofty goals during those first few years.

“We had trouble winning games,” Alvarado said. “We’d be lucky to have three or four guys who really knew how to play.”

Over the years the Wildcats slowly improved, advancing as far as the semifinals.

The Bronx neighborhood in which Walton is located became increasingly Dominican – and with the growing success, the Wildcats began attracting better players.

“This is very satisfying,” Alvarado said. “But we’re not done yet. We still have one more hurdle to clear.”