After three innings of allowing no offense — and only one hit — San Benito’s Megan Sabbatini stepped to the mound in the fourth inning with a commanding 3-0 lead over Salinas.
Despite the lead — all three runs were scored in the bottom of the third inning — head coach Scott Smith knew his ace would face difficulties at some point.
That came in the fourth inning.
After allowing a lead-off single, Sabbatini walked the inning’s third batter and hit its fourth. For the first time, Sabbatini faced a batter with two runners on base.
After a wild pitch, those runners wound up in scoring position. Despite her struggles with control, no one scored.
“The most impressive thing for me, is in years past I saw Megan get in a similar situation and you can tell she has that panicked look on her face,” Smith said of his starter. “I think she accepted the leadership role — she is one of our captains. Basically I could see the look on her face. It said, ‘I’m not going to let this happen to this young team.’”
She didn’t.
Sabbatini threw seven shutout innings and struck out five in San Benito’s 8-0 win over Salinas on Thursday.
Through four games this year, the Balers have allowed only one run and have started their search for a seventh-straight Central Coast Section title with a 4-0 record.
“We are progressing,” Smith said. “We are on schedule. I thought we were behind but today was one of our better efforts. I thought the team rose to the occasion, facing a really strong team. They hit the ball well.”
He continued: “We know our destiny lies with Megan. It’s (Salinas), a very good hitting team, but she cooled their bats off a bit and we made a couple of plays behind her. The key for us was hitting the ball.”
San Benito’s offense started slow, though.
Through the game’s first two innings, the Balers could only gather one base runner. But in the third inning – starting with freshman second baseman Alyssa Newman – the Balers changed their approach.
Using the strong wind blowing in from right field, the Balers used a left-field hitting approach, Smith said. In essence, from the left side, the Balers crowded the plate and took away the outside pitch.
“We talked about our field here and we can’t hit the ball to right field because it wont go anywhere,” Smith said.
Once the Balers made the adjustment, their offense took off.
After Newman’s lead-off double, her sister Brittani Newman walked. Brittany Sparrer followed with an RBI single to left field. Two batters later, Cassidy Heen singled to knock in another run.
Eventually, seven-straight batters reached base, driving in three runs.
“Today, we did better than we have ever done – making her (Salinas’ Justine Armento) throw strikes,” Smith said. “We weren’t going out of the zone, and the umpire had a good strike zone. We forced her to throw it over the plate.”
San Benito added five more runs over the next two innings, highlighted by Brittany Newman’s inside-the-park home run, to build its 8-0 lead.
On the mound, Sabbatini continued to dominate. In seven innings, She allowed six baserunners.
Sabbatini used the windy conditions to her advantage, she said.
“I felt really strong,” she said. “I knew we had a strong defense behind me. On this field, we kind of had the advantage practicing with this wind and defense. It’s crazy. Pitching is crucial. So yeah, pitchers definitely have the advantage because it’s blowing in. It’s a good advantage.”
Sabbatini allowed two hits — neither ball left the infield — but she walked four.
“She is probably at 70 percent right now,” Smith said “She isn’t hitting her spots but she throws hard enough that she is able to get by some of the not-as-strong hitters. She is going to carry us. She is going to get a lot of strikeouts and we have to challenge our defense to be aware of that and not fall asleep when she in on the mound. But it’s nice to have a pitcher on the mound that if they get runners on second and third with no outs, and she gets a strikeout. That’s huge.”
He continued, “We’ve never really had that.”
Sabbatini expects to continue as the season goes on, to honor the players that came before her, she said.
“We have to do it for them,” Sabbatini said. “They brought us this far so we had to do it for them. We work really well as a team.”
San Benito is now 2-0 in the Tri-County Athletic League.
