St. Vincent jumped on visiting Bentley early and ran away with a 9-3 first round win on Wednesday to open the North Coast Section Division V baseball playoffs. The Mustangs aggressively put a three spot on the startled Phoenix in the first inning, and never looked back to move forward.
The underdog sixth-ranked St. Vincent club advance to face third seeded Redwood Christian of Castro Valley on Friday in San Leandro. Redwood edged Fremont Christian, 1-0.
Leadoff hitter George Sammon set the tone for the Mustangs when he lined a drive into right field that should have been a single, but he kept running and slid into second base with a hustle two base hit.
Bentley played things too casually with a deep infield placement through the rest of the frame, and St. Vincent capitalized with an assortment of soft base hits. The Mustangs crossed the plate three times to give starting pitcher Liam Galten a bit of a cushion. RBI hits by Ryan Lowry and Reilly Tobin highlighted the rally.
Galten was in and out of trouble for five innings, but nothing was hammered by the Phoenix. An escalating pitch count became an issue, prompting a couple of visits by St. Vincent coach Gary Galloway.
Galloway was concerned even before the contest began when the burly Bentley players took the field. “They are big kids and have the appearance of a junior college club. They have played a tough schedule, and had close games against good teams,” he said cautiously.
After St. Vincent had forged an 8-1 advantage by the sixth inning, Galten began to falter again, and Galloway made the change to Sky Doble who finished the game. Galten was credited with the victory, yielding only one earned run, but it wasn’t that Doble didn’t have his moments.
Earlier in the game, Doble grabbed a hard line drive near the bag at third base and converted it into a double play at first by throwing off his back foot. It turned out to be the first of a pair of twin kills for the Mustang infield.
Doble also got the most productive hit of the game in the bottom of the fifth inning when he found the gap in left field with a bases-clearing blast that almost left the yard. He also had a single to go along with three RBIs for the afternoon.
Sammon, Galten, Doble, Michael Davis and Nick Vollert each had two hits for the Mustangs as they finished with 12 for the day off three Bentley hurlers.
Henry Lichenstein had three hits for the Lafayette-based club that finished 12-13 for the season in the tough Bay Counties East League.
A very unusual stat in the game stemmed from the ability of Galten to keep the big Bentley hitters off stride. Six opposite field fly balls were handled flawlessly by right fielder Alex Dombrowski.
The North Central II champion Mustangs kept their season alive by improving to 21-4 for the season.
As for the size disparity between the two clubs, Mark Twain was reported to have said “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” The Mustangs had more fight on this day.
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