By Tyler Sonderholzer
In their 21st game of the season, the varsity baseball team fell just short against the Huntington Beach Oilers in extra innings by a score of 5-6, the loss brings their overall record to 13-8 and their lead record to 3-3.
“We battled man, we hung in there,” head coach Deric Yanagisawa said. “We just made a few too many mistakes and we gave up some unnecessary runs and you can’t do that against that team.”
Senior Chase Rousselo was the starting pitcher for the Barons and started out the inning by striking out the leadoff hitter. Then Roussello gave up a walk and two singles which made the score 0-1 in favor of the Oilers. However, the Barons got out of the jam with a double play to end the top of the first. Meanwhile, the bottom of the first was quiet for the Baron offense with the first three batters going down in order.
Rousselo stormed back in the top of the second inning by retiring the side in order with a strike-out and two ground-outs. The bottom of the second inning was the same as the first with the Barons going down in order.
The Oilers had their best offensive inning in the top of the third, a leadoff single led to a two-run home run to make the score 0-3. Their bats continued to stay hot with a double, which was followed by a sacrifice(sac) fly to bring the runner to third. Then, a bunt on the third-base line was too soft for Rousselo to throw the runner out at home which made the score 0-4. Rousselo then picked off the runner at first to make it two outs and followed the pick-off move with a strikeout to end the inning.
The Baron bats awoke in the bottom of the third with senior Ryan Sullivan hitting a leadoff double, then advanced to third on a wild pitch to sophomore Tyler Arevalos, who later popped out. Senior Connor DeBenon hit a run-batted-in(RBI) single to get the Barons on the board to make it a 1-4 game. Junior Chris Ouellette flew out and junior Austin Kolbly lined out to end the inning
In the top of the fourth, Rousselo got the leadoff batter to fly out but hit the next batter who later stole second base to put a runner in scoring position. However, Rousselo struck out the next two batters to end the top of the fourth.
Sophomore Tim Grack hit a leadoff double to put him in scoring positions, however, juniors Keith Aguilar and Blake Wentz both popped out to make it two outs in the bottom of the fourth. Then junior Adam Baggetta hit an RBI double to drive in Grack and make it a 2-4 game. Sullivan later grounded out to end the fourth inning
Rousselo gave up a leadoff walk to start out the top of the fifth innings but stormed back to strike out the next batter. Then a ground ball to DeBenon led to a throwing error while trying to turn a double which advanced the runner to third. Then a wild pitch led the runner on third to advance to second to put both runners in scoring position. Rousselo got the next batter to ground out but it drove in a run to make it a 2-5 game, the top of the fifth ended with a flyout on the following batter.
The Baron bats were quiet in the bottom of the fifth inning with Arevalos and Ouelette grounding out and Debenon popout.
Wentz came in to pitch in the top in the sixth inning and retired the side in order with a strikeout. The bottom of the sixth started out with Kolbly hitting a ball that looked like it would be a home run but it was caught just in front of the wall. Grack and Aguilar hit back-to-back singles up the middle to put runners on second and third. A wild pitch to Wentz advanced both runners into scoring position.
Wentz hit an RBI single to bring in Grack to make it a 3-5 game. Baggetta then hit a sac fly to bring in Aguilar and advanced Wentz to second, now a 4-5 game. Sullivan then hit an RBI single to bring in Wentz to tie the game at 5 apiece. Sullivan then stole second on a pitch to senior Sebastion Gonzalez, who struck out to end the inning and bring the game into extra innings.
Wentz continued to pitch in the top of the seventh inning and got the first two batters to ground out and fly out respectively. Then, Wentz gave up a 2 out single but the catcher, Aguilar, threw out the runner trying to steal second to end the inning.
Senior Sean Collins led off the bottom of the seventh but struck out, followed by an Ouellette line out. Then Kolbly walked to put the winning run on first base, Grack then hit a ground ball to the shortstop but a fielding error led to both runners being safe. However, an Aguilar ground out ended the seventh inning, leaving two men on base.
Wentz returned to the mound in the top of the eighth but gave up a lead-off double to put a runner in scoring position, then a sac bunt advanced the runner from second to third but got an out in the process. Then an RBI single brought the runner on third home to make it a 5-6 game in favor of the Oilers. Wentz then gave up a single to left field but the runner at second was thrown out trying to reach third to make it two outs. Grack came into pitch and he got the final batter to fly out to end the top of the eighth.
The bottom of the eighth started great for the Barons with Wentz hitting a leadoff single, but Baggetta struck out to make it one out. Then a wild pitch to Sullivan led Wentz to advanced to second base to put the tying run in scoring position, Sullivan then hit the ball to left field that got between the third basemen and shortstop and Wentz raced to home plate to tie the game but was thrown out at the plate. Sullivan advanced to second on the play which put him in scoring position, however, Arevalos grounded out to short to end the game.
“Blake Wentz gave us a good, good opportunity to win a game,” said Yanagisawa, “He did a great job on the mound keeping our involved in the game and we did a good job offensively of chipping away against them and that’s all good stuff.”
The Oilers had six runs on nine hits, while the Barons had five runs on ten hits.
Chase Rousselo went five innings, struck out six, walked two, gave up six hits, five runs and one home run. Wentz went two and two-thirds innings, struck out one, gave up five hits and one run, meanwhile Grack went one-thirds inning with no hits, no walks, no strikeouts.
“Today’s game was a little disappointing, we didn’t win but it was a good showing,” said Sullivan, “We got to come out, practice hard tomorrow, and do our best on Thursday.”
The Barons play the Oilers again on Thursday at Huntington Beach High School at 3:15 pm.
