The Varsity Baseball team stayed smokin’ hot on Thursday with a 2-1, 10th inning walk-off win over the Vintage Crushers in Lafayette. This was the second consecutive 2-1 victory for the boys. It pushed their early season record to 5-0. Senior lefty hurler Henry Souza started on the mound for the Dons and threw 4 scoreless innings to get the party started. Reliever Hank Bauer came in for 1.1 innings before Peter Thorn returned to the pitching rotation and registered 4.2 innings of shutout ball for the win! Solid pitching and defense were the order of the day for this early March contest, on both sides.
The Acalanes defense played another errorless game. They flashed the leather from the first inning when centerfielder Keegan Goddard threw a Vintage runner out at home trying to score, to the last out when third baseman Gavin Bender snagged a line drive for the final out of the Crushers 10th inning. Second baseman Mason Zirkel led the defenders with several outstanding plays. All told, he took 7 balls throughout the game and turned them into 8 outs, including a full superman dive to glove a grounder for a throw out at first and a timely, agile double play in the 4th inning off a well hit line drive.
Offensively catcher Benji O’Rourke, shortstop James Stadt and centerfielder Keegan Goddard led the team with 2 hits a piece. In the 6th inning, Keegan got on with a single, before he stole second to create a well needed threat. Benji came up and smelled an RBI. He got one and knocked Goddard in with a single to right field to give the Dons a 1-0 lead!
Vintage tied the game in the top of the 7th at 1-1. The battle remained tied until the bottom of the 10th inning. With 1 out James Stadt came up and ripped a double to left field. He stayed there until Keegan Goddard came up with 2 outs and the game on the line. Keegan drilled a single to left field and the celebration was on!!! The Dons walked-off the Crushers in 10 to stay undefeated!
The boys have captured the attention of all Division 1 teams and pundits. They are enjoying unprecedented Nor Cal and State rankings as they maintain there “one game at a time” posture. Come out see this crew play today at 4pm at Ken Souza Field against the Las Lomas Knights. Stay hot lads!
Let’s Go Dons!