Manteca’s Nathan Nobles, a behemoth 15 year-old, must feel sad
to see host San Benito County Babe Ruth League 15 year-old
All-Stars ousted from the District 1 Tournament. Nobles hit his
second home run in as many meetings with the SBC 15’s as Manteca
played the part of the rude guest in a 13-3 rout at Vets Park
Wednesday night.
Manteca’s Nathan Nobles, a behemoth 15 year-old, must feel sad to see host San Benito County Babe Ruth League 15 year-old All-Stars ousted from the District 1 Tournament. Nobles hit his second home run in as many meetings with the SBC 15’s as Manteca played the part of the rude guest in a 13-3 rout at Vets Park Wednesday night. The game was ended in the fifth inning due to the 10-run mercy rule when Manteca’s Zack Avelar singled to right-center, scoring Scott Scharmann. It was the second straight defeat in as many nights for the SBC 15’s.
Manteca amassed 11 hits, four coming from third place hitter Ryan Fisher. Fisher, a sweet-swinging lefty, went 4-for-4 with 3RBI, including a double and scored three runs. Fisher, on fire to say the least, has gone 8-for-9 in his last two tournament games.
Nobles took SBC’s Anthony Vasquez deep for the second time in the tournament, this time a two-run shot over the left field fence in the second inning. That gave Manteca a 9-0 lead.
“He’s a monster,” Vasquez was overheard commenting in admiration of Nobles while Vasquez was in the on deck circle after the bomb. Nobles had hit a towering three-run homer against Vasquez in SBC’s 4-3 win in the opening game on Saturday.
No, Manteca didn’t mess around in this one, chasing SBC 15’s starter Doug Conte in the first inning. Vasquez relieved Conte after Conte had faced eight batters. For the inning, Manteca tallied seven runs on three hits and sent 11 batters to the plate.
Conte, in his defense, was the victim on a bizarre non-call in the first inning. With one out and with Fisher on at second and Avelar on at first, Chad Simas hit a pop-up on the infield between first and second base. The ball hung in the air as SBC second baseman Josh Torrise migrated slowly towards his left. However, no infield fly rule was called as Torrise, who was acting like he was going to dupe the Manteca runners, had the ball land in front of him for an error. The ball kicked away enough for Fisher to score and allow Avelar to go all the way to third.
“The base umpire said our fielder didn’t make an aggressive enough effort to field the ball. That’s why he didn’t call infield fly rule,” said SBC 15’s manager Scott Flaherty, who was busy scouring the rule book out a couple hours after the game ended. “My assistant, Tim Ferguson, and I looked each other and asked, ‘Isnt’ that the infield fly rule?'”
Three pitches went by from Conte before Ferguson went out on the field to argue with base umpire Bruce Mello. And two batters later, Manny Dominguez cracked a bases-clearing triple to right-center field. The damage was done.
“As it turned out, it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things,” lamented Flaherty.
Nobles, who pitched the first four frames for the win, was perfect through the first three innings. Flaherty inserted five of his reserves at the top of the fourth and three of them helped deliver three runs. Dean Wilkens clobbered an off-field double to left field. Brendon Flaherty singled to left as Wilkens was going to hold at third. The throw got by the Manteca third baseman and Wilkens scored. With one out, Geno Fata singled through the box to advance Flaherty to third.
Karson Klauer’s grounder scored Flaherty, then Fata scored on passed ball.
“Hollister’s a good team,” said Manteca manager Bob Raymus. “The fact they scored three runs after we got ahead showed they had heart. They never gave up.”
“I think the world of this team,” said Scott Flaherty. “We tried to crawl back into it. Manteca came to play (tonight) and we didn’t.”
Flaherty plans on taking the bulk of the SBC 15 stars team and playing some travel tournaments during the summer and in the fall.
“We’re going to give these kids every opportunity to play some more baseball and get better,” said Flaherty.
The SBC 14 All-Stars are the only SBC All-Star team left standing.
SBC 000 30 – 3 3 3
Manteca 720 22 – 13 11 1
Conte, Vasquez (1) and Macfarlane, Bengivengo (4); Nobles, Garcia (5) and Dominguez, Santini (5). WP-Nobles. LP-Conte. 2B – Wilkens (SBC); Fisher (M). 3B – Dominguez (M). HR – Nobles (M). 4 hits – Fisher (M). 2 hits – Scharmann (M). 3 RBI – Fisher, Dominguez (M). 2 RBI – Nobles (M).
