What more could a high school baseball game have?
What more could a high school baseball game have?
A walk-off double? A triple play? The tying runs scoring by a matter of inches?
This one had all of that and it added up to San Benito beating defending Central Coast Section Division I champion Bellarmine 6-5 Saturday to advance to the semifinals for the first time since 2002 and just the second time in the past 32 years.
Making the circumstances all the more improbable was that San Benito’s Brian Haggett seemed to be in the middle of all of the big plays. The junior second baseman blasted the game-winning double, caught the line drive that started the triple play and beat out the force play at second that allowed the tying runs to score.
“This is the biggest game I’ve ever played in and that’s the biggest moment (of my baseball career),” Haggett said of the double, but it could have been equally true for any of the three plays.
The triple play, one of the rarer occurrences in baseball, let alone a high school playoff game, couldn’t have come at a much better time.
With Bellarmine leading 1-0 in the top of the third, the first two runners reached off San Benito starter Kevin Medeiros as the Bells’ No. 3 hitter Grant Bauer came to the plate. Threatening to break the game open, Bellarmine coach Gary Cunningham called for a hit-and-run with a 1-1 count on Bauer.
The result: a line to Haggett that he gloved and flipped to shortstop Ronnie Fhurong to force the runner out at second. Fhurong then threw on to Bryan Scott at first for the inning-ending triple play.
“After that, I told them, ‘Something good is going to happen,'” San Benito coach Michael Luna said.
Something good did happen shortly after. In the bottom of the fourth with Bellarmine leading 2-0, the ‘Balers scored three runs to take the lead.
It stayed that way until the top of the seventh, when the Bells initially tied the game on a double by Mark Canha and took the lead on a two-run homer by Kyle Felix.
“After the home run, you could see the shoulders slump a little,” Luna said. “But the guys in the dugout did a great job of picking them up.”
The seventh-inning rally started when Kevin Burley singled and Justin Andrade reached on a bloop single just past the first baseman. After Kolton Klauer moved the runners up with a bunt, Kevin Medeiros was called out on strikes.
That brought up Haggett, who burned Bellarmine earlier this season with a walk-off home run to give the ‘Balers a 12-11 win. Cunningham wasn’t going to let that happen this time and ordered the intentional walk.
So with the bases loaded, sophomore Kyle Zozaya hit a chopper to the shortstop, who tried to flip to second for the game’s final out. The play was close, but Haggett was called safe and Andrade sprinted all the way from second and scored on a head-first dive.
“I knew it was close,” Luna said. “Whatever way you called it, you would’ve been right.”
The call went San Benito’s way, prolonging the game and allowing the team to deliver an improbable win.
Now it’s on to Municipal Stadium at 4pm Thursday and a semifinal matchup with Santa Teresa – the team that knocked San Benito out of the playoffs last year with a 5-1 quarterfinal victory.
The ‘Balers are winless in their three previous trips to the semifinals (1971, 1975, 2002), but this team has a little extra swagger and it might be enough to propel it to the CCS title game for the first time in school history.
Jimmy Durkin is the Hollister Free Lance sports editor. Reach him at [email protected].
