After a few scrimmages, the JV baseball team kicked off the regular season with a trip across the bay to face Marin Catholic.  The game was well attended from both sides, with visitors not deterred by the cold and blustery conditions, and the Dons provided the fireworks to keep the crowd well entertained.  The game was off to a sloppy start, with the Dons getting two free base runners on a dropped fly ball and a beanball, but then failing to convert them into runs.  The Wildcats starter threw hard and was able to hit his spots, so runs were hard to come by for a time.  Marin Catholic got on the board first, getting a couple of walks and scoring the runners on groundouts.  The Dons then got into a serious jam with bases loaded in the bottom 1st, but Peter Thorn elicited the groundball he needed to end the threat.  The Dons answered with two runs on their own in the 2nd: Everett Glass and James Stadt (Fr) lead off with singles and then ran the bases hard, forcing a couple of throwing errors than allowed them to score without the benefit of a swung bat.  The game was still tied at 2 when Keegan Goddard (Fr) came up to the plate and got all of it, taking a big cut on a 0-2 fastball, for Dons first home run of the season (solo).  The Dons’ bats went quiet after this, for a couple of innings, while the Wildcats managed to scratch out two more runs.  In the 6th inning, the Dons offense woke up.  Wyatt Cooper (Fr) got on when his hard groundball was airmailed to 1st, and Sully Bailey hit a monster stand-up triple over the CF head.  Everett hit another single, James walked, Brady Quinn (Fr) knocked Everett in with a long line drive single, and Mason Zirkel capped the inning with another big line drive that scored two runs.  The offensive display continued in top 7th: Wyatt and Paul Kuhner singled, Everett got his 3rd hit of the night by grounding a double over the 3rd base bag, Aleksey Volobuev and Brady walked, and Mason once again put a big exclamation point on the game with a base-clearing triple to the right that almost hit the fence.  Dons 13, Marin Catholic 4.
With offense on fire, Dons pitching staff took care of their end as well.  Peter Thorn started on the mound, and went 4 innings, giving up 4 runs (3 earned) on 4 hits.  Mason came out in the relief, and slammed the door shut, giving up no runs and a lone hit over 3 innings, while striking out 5.  The Dons defense wasn’t exactly stellar, but was solid enough to keep the game close when it mattered.  The defensive highlight on the night was a 4-3 double play turned in the bottom 3rd, much needed given the 2-on, nobody out situation.  The Dons racked up some good-looking stats that night: Everett went 3-4 with 3R and an RBI, Mason had 5 RBIs on 2H, Wyatt, Brady, and James each got 2R, and 8 different Dons got a hit in the game.
JV Dons will be back in action on Wednesday (today!) when they host Saint Pats at Acalanes at 3:30pm. Check them out!