Held to three hits, Bulldogs fall 3-0 against Los Altos
From Willow Glen’s record 27-0 regular season to Palo Alto’s impressive rise to the top seed, Division II featured some of the best story lines going into the Central Coast Section baseball playoffs.
Sobrato had a great chance to pen its own magnum opus, having marquis pitching and several talented veterans back from a team that played for the championship in 2009. The pressure, ultimately, was too much.
“I think that affected them a lot this year,” manager Shorty Gutierrez said Thursday after his seventh-seeded Bulldogs fell 3-0 to No. 10 Los Altos in a first-round game at Sobrato High School. “There was a lot of pressure on them, and that’s tough to deal with. It’s a little disappointing to end like this. We had high goals, and we knew the playoffs were going to be a battle like this.”
In the same afternoon No. 2 Willow Glen fell 7-5 to No. 15 Fremont, another story took flight in sophomore pitcher Luke Wiechec, who struck out five in the full seven innings for Los Altos (20-12). He kept the Bulldogs off balance with his high heat, great location and deceptive breaking pitches.
Sobrato (12-16) had three singles.
“He hit his spots all game,” said SHS starter Ryan Williams, who had five strikeouts in a complete game as well. “They had a few good at-bats, and we didn’t.”
Mat Snider Jr. provided three hits for the Eagles and helped fuel a two-run first inning. Los Altos, a De Anza Division school with five straight wins going in, pushed ahead 3-0 in the third.
The Bulldogs, meanwhile, stranded runners in scoring position with one out in the second. They showed life again in the sixth when Tim Andrade walked, and Williams bounced a single between second and first. But Wiechec (6-4) struck out Bryan Bradley and got Tanner Di Sibio to pop out and end the inning.
Di Sibio, a freshman, had a single in the second.
“They play very sound fundamental baseball, so I was nervous about seeing them with guys on base,” said Los Altos manager Sandy Withol, whose team beat Sobrato 5-2 March 6. “Luke’s a battler, too, though. He’s had moments of greatness. This is the game where he put it all together.”
The Bulldogs put men on base with one out again in the seventh. Sophomore Alex Hagiperos dove into first base for a single, and Conor Havstad — another sophomore — was hit by a 1-2 pitch in the next at-bat.
The Eagles dodged a bullet when third baseman Nolan O’Such made a diving catch in foul territory to retire Aaron Wallace for out No. 2. That set up a showdown between Wiechec and senior Chris Bradley, one of the most dangerous hitters in the Mount Hamilton Division.
Bradley narrowly missed making solid contact — the dream ended with a flyout to center.
“We had some situations where we could have scored runs, and we didn’t come through,” Gutierrez said. “One hit, it could have been different.”
Sobrato’s graduating players still had a lot to proud of. Some where part of three straight trips to the postseason, including last year’s run to the finals, plus the program’s first league championship in 2008.
The Bulldogs could return as many as eight varsity players next spring.
“We gave it our best. It’s just how baseball is sometimes,” Williams said.
“These seniors battled every day and worked their tails off for me, whether they were here four years or two,” Gutierrez said. “They’ve done a really good job.”
