SANTA CLARA—In two Central Coast Section Open Division playoff games, the San Benito High baseball team was every bit the equal of its West Catholic League counterparts.
Which made last Saturday’s 4-3 quarterfinal loss to Mitty at Washington Park that much harder to take. The No. 2 seed Haybalers (22-7) saw their season end having fallen short of their ultimate goal—a section title.
“Obviously we wanted to win, but we did not execute early defensively or offensively (late in the game), and it cost us,” San Benito coach Billy Aviles said. “We had a very successful year, and we have a lot of seniors who will be playing in college next year. This was a tough loss, but there is life after Baler baseball. We’ll come back and try to do it again next year.”
Seventh-seed Mitty (24-6), the WCAL regular-season champion, got the game-winning run with two out in the top of the seventh inning off the bat of Luke Rasmussen, who took a 2-0 pitch from Balers reliever Tommy Hernandez and launched it over the fence in left field.
It was the only run Hernandez yielded in four strong innings of relief. Aviles said the plan was to not give Rasmussen—the WCAL Player of the Year—anything to hit.
“We wanted it to be an unintentional intentional walk,” Aviles said. “It was supposed to be a change-up in the dirt, it wasn’t and he hit it pretty well. Tommy did well, he’s a gamer and he gave us a chance to win.”
Hernandez’s relief stint was preceded by a solid start from Greg Steinbeck, who went three innings and allowed just one earned run. The performance came three days after Steinbeck went four innings in a 4-3, 10-inning win over Serra in the opening round.
That game ended on a much better note for the Balers, who received a home run from Zack Moeller to center field leading off the bottom of the 10th inning to cap a thrilling contest that lasted 3 hours, 15 minutes.
Unfortunately for the Balers, they couldn’t come up with any late-inning heroics against Mitty, which benefited from a San Benito error in the first inning that led to two runs.
The Balers answered with a three-run second inning, as freshman Drew Williams plated Garret Kelly for the team’s first run with a single over Monarchs shortstop Max Werner, who was playing much shallower than normal to save a run.
One out later, Cody Freitas reached on an infield single.
On the play, Williams was way off the second-base bag, but the Mitty first baseman threw the ball to left field, plating Williams to make it 2-2. Andrew Breen, who doubled in his first at-bat, followed with a run-scoring single to give San Benito its only lead—however brief—of the game.
Mitty came right back in the top of the third to tie things up, and neither team scored the rest of the way until Rasmussen’s moon shot in the seventh. Since the 2010 playoffs, the Balers are now 4-4 against teams from the WCAL, which is widely regarded as one of the best leagues in the state.
San Benito earned that fourth win in dramatic fashion, beating Serra on Moeller’s walk-off shot. It capped a tremendous game, one that surely will go down as one of the best San Benito home playoff victories in team history.
In addition to Moeller’s heroics, Balers pitcher Hunter Haworth was flat-out dynamite, as he pitched six innings of shutout relief. The Chico State-bound right-hander went a perfect 10-0 this season with a microscopic 0.44 ERA.
Haworth produced one of the greatest seasons by a pitcher in school history, as he allowed just 45 hits in 64 innings while striking out 64. Although Haworth’s effort against Serra wasn’t his most dominating performance of the season, it was probably the most impressive considering he had absolutely no margin for error, as he came in with the team trailing by a run.
And considering the competition—the Padres have one of the best lineups in the section—Haworth’s performance was one of the gutsiest of his burgeoning career. He allowed four hits, all singles, walked four (two intentional) and hit a batter.
San Benito scored single runs in the second, third and sixth inning before Moeller’s walk-off shot sealed the outcome. Kelly got the Balers on the board with a solo home run to left field leading off the second, and Dylan Yamasaki’s single with one out in the third brought the Balers to within 3-2.
San Benito went down in order in the fourth and had the bases loaded in the fifth only to come up empty. With their season on the line, the Balers got the critical tying run in the bottom of the sixth.
Daniel Gonzales hit a leadoff single and one out later advanced to second base on a wild pitch. Freitas’ groundout advanced Gonzales to third, and he scored moments later on another wild pitch from Serra starter Matt Blais.
One hit, two wild pitches, one run—just what the Balers needed with their season hanging in the balance.
Even though San Benito couldn’t beat Mitty for the third consecutive time in the playoffs—it defeated the Monarchs 5-0 in the quarterfinals last year and 4-0 in the same round in 2012—it could rest in the fact that it had another stellar season, highlighted by its ninth league championship in the last 10 years.
ALL LEAGUE
Several players were named to the MBL Gabilan Division All-League teams. Outfielder Dylan Yamasaki was named the league’s Most Valuable Player, and Hunter Haworth and Greg Steinbeck were named co-MVP at pitcher.
Billy Aviles was named the coach of the year. Outfielder Garret Kelly, infielder Tony Amaral, infielder Andrew Breen and catcher Zack Moeller were also named to the first team.
Pitcher Jacob Trujillo, infielder Junior Rodriguez and Daniel Gonzales earned Honorable Mention honors, while Edgar Arriola was named to the All-Sportsmanship team.
