A season-long struggle with costly errors bit the Live Oak High
baseball team one last time in the first round of the Central Coast
Section playoffs on Wednesday. And, this time it ended the
Acorns
’ season.
A season-long struggle with costly errors bit the Live Oak High baseball team one last time in the first round of the Central Coast Section playoffs on Wednesday.
And, this time it ended the Acorns’ season.
A key Live Oak error in the bottom of the fifth inning gave host Archbishop Mitty the opportunity it needed to score three big runs en route to handing the Acorns a 7-1 loss in the CCS playoffs.
However, Live Oak coach Mark Cummins said he was proud of the way his team played despite the loss.
“One little error and they get the big hit and that kind of opened the door for them,” Cummins said. “But I liked the way we battled. We had a tough draw but a few plays here and there and it could have gone differently.”
Senior catcher Chase Perez, a three-year varsity starter, said the Acorns played “the best ball we’ve played all year.”
“We just didn’t make the plays when we needed to,” senior catcher Chase Perez said. “But you take away two bad innings and we’re right there. We were ready to play but it just didn’t happen for us.”
Indeed, No. 9 Live Oak (14-12 overall) looked like a match for No. 8 Mitty (19-10-1 overall) in the early going.
Acorn senior pitcher Eric Abbott was matching Monarchs starter Ken Gentert were hooked up in a pitcher’s duel.
While Abbott allowed a pair of hits and two walks in the first two innings, he used his breaking pitch effectively to get out of trouble in the early innings.
Meanwhile, the Acorns were pounding the ball off Gentert, but their line drives were finding Monarch gloves.
In the second inning, Live Oak got two runners on — Daniel Salinas singled and Perez was hit by a pitch — when Jared Kwock sliced a two-out drive to right that looked like it would drop to score the speedy Salinas and give the Acorns an early lead.
But Mitty’s John Joines dived and snagged the ball just off the grass for the out.
In the bottom of the third inning, Mitty struck for a run when Jason Codiroli walked and Keven Becker singled off first baeeman Steve Conner’s glove to put runners at first and third.
Mitty’s Ryan Conan slammed a drive to centerfield for a sacrifice fly to give the Monarchs a 1-0 lead but Abbott settled down to retire the next two batters to end the threat.
In the top of the fourth, Live Oak’s Andrew Cummins smacked a liner to center that looked like a lead-off hit, but Codiroli dived and made the catch.
“We were hitting the ball all over the place,” Perez said.
“The balls they hit snuck through and the balls we hit found somebody,” Cummins said.
Mitty broke the game open with two outs in the bottom of the fourth. A walk and an error on a little dribbler on the infield put runners at first and second. Then, on an 0-2 pitch, Codiroli slammed a double to right to score a pair, and Becker followed with an RBI single to score Codiroli for a 4-0 lead.
Live Oak scored its lone run in the top of the sixth inning. Doug Porras reached on a single and Cummins walked before Mitty ace Codiroli relieved Gentert.
Live Oak Dave Newton greeted Codiroli with a hard grounder up the middle that Mitty shortstop Johno Shaffer made a diving stop on but threw it wide of first to score Porras to make the score 4-1.
But Codiroli ended the inning with a strikeout.
In the bottom of the inning, Mitty scored three runs off Live Oak sophomore Kyle Mosbrucker, who relieved Abbott in the fifth, to put the game away.
Acorn senior Dylan Regan relieved Mosbrucker in the inning and finished the game.
Perez said he and his teammates learned a lot during the team’s up-and-down season this year.
“We struggled early on but we all became better people for it,” Perez said.
Live Oak toughed out a difficult non-league schedule, then won five of its first six league games to grab first-place in the Tri-County Athletic League standings.
The Acorns hit a lull during the midway part of the season, dropping into third place in the league standings after a discouraging home loss to Hollister, and were in danger of becoming the first team in Coach Cummins’ long high school coaching career to miss the CCS playoffs.
But a four-game winning streak to end the season, during which the Acorns scored 52 runs, lifted them into second-place in TCAL and secured the league’s second automatic berth in the section playoffs.
“We were kind of at a crossroads as a team after the Hollister loss,” Cummins said. “We got a chance to see what kind of a team wer were after that and we resaponded. That was nice to see. The guys really came together as a team.”
