After a couple of innings of clouding up, the St. Vincent High School baseball team unloaded a deluge of hits, walks and sundry associated offense on a badly overmatched Oakland Military Institute Grizzly team Monday afternoon, winning 15-0.
The teams took a chance on keeping the game on the schedule despite a wet morning, and the gamble paid off with a perfectly playable game on St. Vincent’s synthetic playing field.
Unfortunately, the teams didn’t get a chance for a full game’s worth of practice. St. Vincent effectively ended the game with 15 runs in the third inning. The contest was terminated after Oakland batted in the fourth.
The Grizzlies, much to their credit, managed to keep St. Vincent at bay for the first two innings.
Tyler Cunha led off for the Mustangs with a solid single, but he was almost immediately erased when he took off on John Romano’s long fly to center that was caught and converted into a double play.
St. Vincent moved walk-boarded Trent Free to third base in the second, but he expired there when Dante Antonini flied deep to left.
Not only did the wheels fall off the bus for Oakland in the third, but the transmission, engine and doors dropped off as well.
AJ Fetter walked to start the inning for the Mustangs. There followed a parade of 19 St. Vincent batters (20 in all). They brought with them six hits and nine walks. Oakland aided a team that needed no help with three errors.
The most impressive blow of the endless inning was struck by Romano, who laced a single/home run to right-center field. The ball squirted past the Oakland outfielders on the ultra-fast St. Vincent turf and Romano steamed home behind two of his teammates for what was ruled a single and an error.
Oakland Military Institute never did retire St. Vincent in that third inning. The Mustangs finally got themselves out by having Fetter wander so far off first base that the Grizzlies had no choice but to tag him for the inning’s final out.
After St. Vincent pitcher Joe Sartori had retired the Grizzlies in the top of the fourth, the umpires called a halt to the proceedings.
Sartori retired all but two of the 14 batters he faced, striking out nine. He gave up a legitimate single in the second and walked a batter in that inning, but mostly Oakland made no contact.
Despite their ability to score almost at will, the Mustangs had just seven hits.
Tougher triumph
St. Vincent had a more difficult time Tuesday afternoon but still managed an 8-5 win over Credo from Rohnert Park.
St. Vincent built a 7-1 lead over two innings in that game, but the Mustangs had to hold on as Credo rallied for four runs over the final three innings.
Carson White had a big hitting game for the Mustangs with a double and a triple. Jack Belway and Trent Free each had two hits for St. Vincent.
Free, White and Gio Antonini all threw for the Mustangs, with Free working the first five innings for the win.
St. Vincent is now 6-1 on the season, with a home game against rival Tomales coming up Friday.
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