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The first steps have been taken by the Menlo and Sacred Heart Prep baseball teams on this journey they call the Central Coast Section playoffs. How long it lasts for the Knights and Gators will be determined Saturday when both compete in the quarterfinals in Monterey.
The No. 3-seeded Knights (25-6) will face No. 11 Soquel (17-10) at Sollecito Field while the No. 5-seeded Gators (19-11) take on No. 13 Half Moon Bay (19-12) at Monterey Peninsula College, both at 2 p.m.
At stake will be berths in the CCS Division III semifinals on Tuesday at San Jose Municipal Stadium. The championship game will return to San Jose Muni on May 30 at 1 p.m.
With Menlo and Sacred Heart Prep in opposite brackets, the possibility exists that an all-Atherton finale could result for the first time ever. But, that’s still two victories away.
Menlo had no problem advancing through the first round of the tournament, defeating No. 14 Seaside, 8-3, on Wednesday afternoon. Soquel advanced with a 21-5 rout of No. 6 Harker.
The Knights got the scoring going early, scoring three runs in the first inning. Menlo only got two hits in the inning, but took advantage of a walk and three hit batsmen.
“They were nervous at the start of the game. That was pretty obvious,” Menlo coach Craig Schoof said of Seaside. “They’re a pretty good team and they walked a lot of guys and hit a lot of guys.”
After the rough first inning, Seaside starter Aaron Love recovered to shut down the Knights in the next two innings. With the Menlo offense temporarily halted, Seaside (17-14) got on the board with an RBI groundout by Cordero Usrey.
However, in the fourth and fifth, the Menlo bats re-ignited as the Knights scored five runs over the two innings. Danny Diekroeger brought in a run in both the fourth and the fifth with two RBI knocks, while Chris Ryan drove in two runs in the fifth with a clutch two-out single.
On the mound, senior Alex Smith threw a complete game to pick up the win, allowing three runs on five hits. Smith was certainly dominant through the first six innings, only allowing two hits and one run.
In the seventh, Smith let up, allowing four straight hits to begin the inning. With two runs already in and no outs, Smith got the benefit of a great defensive play when right fielder Clay Robbins made a diving catch and then doubled up Troy Thomae at second. Asked what his thoughts were when Robbins made the catch, Smith said, “Phew . . . Clay covers more ground than any outfielder we have.”
Despite the scare of three runs, Smith managed to finish out the seventh to get the complete game and the win, his seventh of the season.
“He’s our No. 1,” Schoof said. “When he takes the ball, we know what we’re going to get from him. He just battles. The guy’s a winner.”
“I got ahead of a lot of hitters. I hit a lot of spots early in the count so that I could get ahead and throw my pitch,” said Smith.
Offensively, Diekroeger and Ryan were the hot bats, both driving in three runs. Ryan also had an RBI double in the fourth inning, and Diekroeger collected three hits in the game. “He (Diekroeger) is a really good hitter,” said Schoof.
“I just try to hit the ball hard every time and I just found the holes today,” said Diekroeger.
Still, despite Menlo’s multi-faceted success, Schoof identified clutch hitting as an area in need of improvement. Menlo left 12 runners on base, including stranding the bases loaded twice.
“We’re going to have to hit in the clutch a little bit better,” said Schoof. “We had a chance to blow it (the score) open and we didn’t.”
Sacred Heart Prep, meanwhile, had a chance to blow it, period, as the Gators fell behind by 7-6 entering the bottom of the seventh in their opener against visiting St. Francis-Central Coast Catholic (Watsonville).
SHP coach Gregg Franceschi, however, didn’t see any quit in his team.
“We don’t count ourselves out at any point of a game,” Franceschi said. “We knew that if we couldn’t get one run to tie, that we didn’t deserve to win.”
Franceschi also knew he had his No. 2-6 hitters coming up, all of them seniors. Ryan Sakowski was the first batter in the seventh and promptly singled. After a pitching change, SHP’s JJ Suttle worked the count to 3-2. With Sakowski running, Suttle bounced to shortstop, whose only play was to get Suttle. Eric Andrews was intentionally walked and Matt Brezinski also walked to load the bases.
Franceschi had sophomore Thomas O’Donnell run for Andrews at second. Alex Baloff singled home Sakowski to tie the game but O’Donnell couldn’t score after stumbling at second. With the bases still loaded, Kevin Wilkins came to the plate after just throwing 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief of Brezinski.
With the outfielders playing in with hopes of making a play at the plate, Wilkins lofted a fly ball over their heads for the game-winning single in SHP’s 8-7 triumph.
The Gators, who came into the game with a team batting average of .382, had 11 hits but committed three errors. Sakowski raised his .394 average with four hits and an RBI. That gives him 41 hits and 24 RBI this season. Alex Siegel and Suttle each had two hits. Siegel now has 44 hits and raised his .393 average while Suttle now has 39 hits and moved closer to .400 after entering the game with a .394 batting average.
The Gators now head into Saturday’s quarterfinal against Half Moon Bay, a team they’ve faced three times already. SHP is 2-1 against the Cougars, having beaten them early in the season in a nonleague game and then last week to secure a 9-5 record in the PAL Ocean Division and a postseason berth.
Half Moon Bay (19-12) pulled off a big upset by topping No. 4 Santa Cruz in eight innings, 7-6. Half Moon Bay is seeded No. 13.
SHP coach Gregg Franceschi probably was thinking his team would be playing Santa Cruz, but now a familiar opponent looms. The only question that remains is which SHP team will show up Saturday?
Sacred Heart Prep has graduation ceremonies on Friday, followed by Grad Night.
“We’ll see how that plays out,” said Franceschi, who’s confident that his players will make the right decisions and find time to get an appropriate amount of sleep.
“We’re leaving it up to them,” he said. “It’s the only Grad Night they’re going to go to. I’m confident they’ll do the right thing.”
Franceschi made plans for the possible game-after-Grad Night by contacting the CCS office last week and making a request that if his team made it to the quarterfinals, that it be allowed to play at 2 p.m. instead of 11 a.m.
â– Latest prep scores, game details from PA Online
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Menlo senior Alex Smith tossed a complete-game five-hitter to beat visiting Seaside, 8-3, in a CCS Division III baseball opener on Wednesday. Photo by Keith Peters/Palo Alto Online. -
Sacred Heart Prep’s Kevin Wilkins pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief and drove in the winning run in the bottom of the seventh to lift the Gators to an 8-7 victory over St. Francis-CCC in a CCS Division III opener Wednesday. Photo by Keith Peters/Palo Alto Online.
