After beating the College Park Falcons last Thursday, the JV baseball team took to the road to ground another flying foe, this time taking down the Falcons of Pleasanton’s Foothill High. Before any of the spectators even had time to wonder how many fly balls the left fielders would lose in the evening sun, the Dons struck for 3 runs in the top of the first. A leadoff single by Tyler Winkles, one of his three hits on the day, was followed by a sacrifice bunt and a cascade of walks which forced Foothill’s coach to come and get his starter who couldn’t buy a strike. A deep sacrifice fly by catcher Jasper Stewart gave Dons’ starting pitcher Gavin Beers a comfortable lead. Beers gave up just one hit in the first, and two in the second, but a few free passes, and error, and a passed ball helped to give the gift of life back to Foothill and their bench, and it was 3-3 after two innings.
The visitors added one in the top of the third to break the tie, this on the sacrifice fly of designated hitter Josh Lee, who made his Dons debut on Monday, as he made it back from a pre-season non-throwing elbow injury. In a welcome 1-2-3 third, Beers had his cleanest inning of the game. The Dons then came to the plate in the top of the fourth and had the Foothill scoreboard been an old-fashioned manual scoreboard, the worker’s hands would have been bloody. Acalanes scored 9 runs in the fourth, thanks to a two-RBI triple by Jimmy Cusumano and a three-RBI triple by Tyler Winkles, on his second at-bat of the inning. Now on the mound with a 10-run cushion, Beers couldn’t get out of the fourth, as the inning stretched for an eternity. His pitch count had been swelling with some long counts in the previous innings, and now he ran up against his 90-pitch limit as the Falcons loaded the bases, and then a wild pitch walk led to two additional runs. (Non-varsity pitching rules allow a pitcher to throw 90 pitches in a day.) Riley Gates got the last out in the fourth, but by then the home team had crept closer, 13-7.
Foothill scratched away for two more runs against Gates and Brendan Miles, on in relief of Gates, in the fifth. By now the fielders had put away their sunglasses and whether the game could finish in daylight was a question in mind. However, Miles more quickly got through the sixth and seventh innings in scoreless fashion, and after an insurance run by the Dons in the top of the seventh, it was 14-9 Dons.
The team outhit Foothill 10-8, with Tyler Winkles going 3-5 with four RBIs. Cusumano, Lee, and Stewart each had two RBI. Foothill’s four pitchers threw 177 pitches and Acalanes three pitchers threw 155 pitches.
The team is back on the field Tuesday in Benicia, before returning home to host the Panthers on Thursday.