PREP BASEBALL: DV slugger Allen shows no rust after knee injury, drills two doubles in win

Andrew Allen may have missed most of his senior season with the Desert Vista High School baseball team, but he made it back to the lineup just when the Thunder need him most.

Allen smacked two doubles and drew a walk during Desert Vista’s 10-1 drubbing of intracity rival Mountain Pointe Tuesday at Tempe Diablo Stadium. It was the Thunder’s second straight blowout win of the Class 5A-Division I playoffs.

“Mountain Pointe has beaten us three times already this season so this feels real good,” Allen said. “I was happy I could help the team out.”

Allen has only been competing about two weeks after missing two months of time on the diamond. He tore the meniscus in his knee during the Thunder’s third game of the season, a Feb. 24 tilt against Mesa Mountain View. The injury occurred while sliding, and Allen immediately knew something was wrong.

Allen had surgery to repair his knee shortly after the injury and then participated in weeks of rehab, all while watching his teammates compete during his senior year.

“It was real hard,” Allen said. “The whole time I was out, I kept thinking I couldn’t wait to get back.”

Allen returned to the Thunder in the third-to-last game of the regular season against Mesa Dobson April 18 and quickly had an impact.

“You don’t know what guys are going to be like when they come back - he’s only been swinging a bat about two weeks,” Desert Vista coach Stan Luketich said. “Fortunately for us, with his work habits, it gave him an opportunity to get in and be successful when he gets in a game situation.

“He didn’t see much live pitching, so we wondered how he would do, but we know, with his ability, that he should do what he has been doing.”

Luketich added he had no reservations about quickly inserting Allen into the No. 4 spot in the batting order, especially since the Thunder stumbled into the playoffs as the No. 13 seed.

“When you’re not playing well, you want to go with your best players even if they haven’t been in the game, and that’s what we did,” Luketich said. “He’s swung the bat well ever since he’s been in our program. So we expect good things from him and, more importantly, he expects good things from himself.”

Against Mountain Pointe, Allen batted in the Thunder’s first run of the game after hitting an inside curveball to the opposite field for his first double. It was the first of five runs in the opening frame for Desert Vista.

In the second inning, he helped the team notch two more runs by tagging a fastball inside for his other double.

“We knew they were going to fight, so jumping on them early on was key,” Allen said.

--Christopher Drexel can be reached at (480) 898-4906 or cdrexel@aztrib.com.