By Tyler Sonderholzer
In their twenty-seventh game of the season, the varsity baseball team shuts out the Laguna Beach Breakers by a score of 3-0, improving their overall record to 15-12 thanks to junior Blake Wentz’s stellar pitching performance.
“I thought Blake Wentz was outstanding today, he got seven leadoff outs,” head coach Deric Yanagisawa said.
The top of the first started well for the Baron defense with a one-two-three inning and Wentz striking out the final two batters. However, the Baron bats started out slow by also going down in order.
The Breakers went down in order again in the top of the second with two ground outs and a strikeout by Wentz. The Barons got their first hit of the game thanks to a Wentz single who then advanced to second on senior Ryan Sullivan’s sacrifice bunt. Junior Adam Baggetta hit a line drive to second that was dropped but he was still thrown out at first, then junior Austin Kolbly grounded out to end the inning.
The third inning continued with Wentz’s strong pitching performance by striking out the first two Breaker batters and getting the third batter to ground out to end the top of the third.
The bottom of the third was the best inning for the Baron offense as sophomore Tyler Arevalos was hit by the pitch and advanced to second on a wild pitch to senior Conner DeBenon. DeBenon then hit a run batted in (RBI) double to give the Barons their first run of the game.
Junior Chris Ouellette grounded into a fielder’s choice which advanced DeBenon to third but Ouellette was thrown out at first. Junior Keith Aguilar hit an run batted in (RBI) single up the middle to drive in DeBenon to make it 2-0 Barons, Aguilar then stole second on a pitch to sophomore Tim Grack. However, Grack lined out and Wentz grounded out to end the inning.
The top of the fourth started out well for Wentz yet again by getting the first two batters to ground out and pop out; however, he gave up his first hit of the game on a two-out single but stormed back to get a ground out to end the top of the fourth.
The bottom of the fourth started out with a Sullivan ground out, then Baggetta hit a single who moved to second on a pick-off move that went past the first basemen to go out of play during Kolbly at-bat. He then hit a single to put runners on first and second but Arevalos and DeBenon struck out to end the inning.
Wentz stayed out for the top of the fifth by getting the leadoff batter to fly out but gave up a single up the middle, then Kolbl, the catcher, threw the runner out while he was trying to steal second. Wentz got the batter to pop out and end the top of the fifth. The bottom of the fifth was quiet for the Baron as they went down in order to end the fifth inning.
The Breaker bats continued to stay cold and went down in order again, continuing Wentz’s dominant performance. The bottom of the sixth started out with Wentz grounding out and Sullivan popping out but Baggetta hit a two-out double down the left-field line to put him in scoring position. Kolbly hit a RBI double to drive in Baggetta and make expand the Baron lead to 3-0, however, Arevalos popped out to end the inning.
Wentz stayed out for the seventh and got the leadoff batter to ground out, then a pop fly to left field was pursued by Grack who made a great catch after bobbling the ball and brought the Breakers to their final out of the game. The final batter grounded out to the shortstop, DeBenon, to end the game to cap off a stellar pitching performance from Wentz and the Barons won their final home game of the regular season.
Wentz pitched a complete game shutout with seven innings, six strikeouts, two hits, no walks and no runs.
“He threw a lot of first-pitch strikes and he had no walks,” Yanagisawa said. “When pitchers do that, they’re going to be around for a long time.”
The Laguna Beach Breakers had no runs on two hits while the Barons had three runs on seven hits.
The Barons improve their record to 15-12. Since this was a non-league game, their league record remains 2-7. Their final game of the season is Thursday at Corona del Mar at 3:15 p.m.
