LO protects lead in win over Westmont
MORGAN HILL — In his 23 years of coaching Live Oak baseball, Mark Cummins thought he had seen everything before Tuesday’s finale against Westmont.
Clinging to a one-run lead with two outs and a runner in scoring position in the bottom of the seventh inning, Cummins’ team was in danger of losing a game it once led by six runs. The Warriors cut a three-run deficit to one on back-to-back sacrifice flies, but the latter play piqued Cummins’ curiosity. One runner tagged up and scored, and another advanced to third — did he leave early?
“We appealed to the second-base umpire, and that was the game,” Cummins said with a laugh. “That’s how it ended. We’re done. Come to the ballpark every day and you see something different. That’s something I’ve never seen before, but, hey, it’s good for us.”
And with that, the 2009 Acorns have officially triumphed in every kind of way. They have won five come-from-behind thrillers, three blowouts, a pair of low-scoring duals and, now, have shown they can stave off a good rally as well.
“It’s getting pretty crazy,” said Live Oak senior Alika Bantilan, who clubbed his third home run of the season, a three-run blast, in the first inning Tuesday. “You just have to keep playing until the last out. We knew (Westmont) wasn’t done, just like we never are.”
When the dust settled at Sarich Field, the Acorns were 9-4 overall and 4-3 in Mount Hamilton Division play. Winners of four straight, they sit a game behind first-place Santa Teresa heading into next week’s two-game series with Leland — not that they’re scoreboard watching yet.
“It’s on our minds; how other teams are doing. But, really, all we got to do is focus on getting better in practice and what team we play next,” Bantilan said. “We can’t worry about other teams this early.”
Bantilan finished 2-for-3 batting and scored twice. Gabriel Mancias went 2 for 4 and added two RBIs, and Michael Schreiber sacrificed home a run.
Sophomore pitcher Rich Martinez earned his third victory of the season, yielding six hits and two runs, and senior Connor Sutton got the save.
Martinez (3-1) was lifted for Jeff Stine after the fourth inning.
“Rich pitched pretty good,” Cummins said. “He threw strikes, got ahead in the count. It was probably his best outing.”
The visiting Warriors (7-7, 2-5) outhit Live Oak 9-6, but were hampered by four errors.
After Bantilan’s 370-foot blast to left off Charlie Chapman (2-2), Live Oak pushed ahead 7-1 with four runs in the third. The teams traded runs in the fourth.
“Getting all that run support helped me a lot,” Martinez said. “I felt confident that my defense would make plays. I basically just threw strikes until they hit it.
“My fastball was going well in the beginning, and I got my curveball down after a while.”
The Warriors didn’t stay down. They poured in three runs in the fifth inning to make it 8-5, but Sutton closed it out.
“It’s good to know we have the confidence that if they come back, we’d be able to win,” Cummins said. “We have the mentality that we’re going to win the close games. We’re not afraid of them.”
Cannon Bernarding finished 3 for 4 with a double and two runs, Jason Brady had two RBIs, and Marshall McKinnon went 2 for 3 and scored twice for Westmont.
The Warriors host a rematch at 3:30 p.m. today in Campbell.
