Baseball:
Nothing comes easy in the CIF-SS Division 1 baseball playoffs.
And the difficulty multiplies when you’re down 5-1 in the fifth inning.
But Arcadia rallied for five fifth-inning runs and got another in the sixth to defeat Dana Hills, 7-5, on Wednesday.
The Apaches’ ace, Casey Spencer, did not have his best stuff Wednesday, and left after two innings of work.
Spencer was charged with three runs on three hits and four walks.
Julian Eskridge came in and allowed a pair of unearned runs in the top of the third inning.
But that was it.
Eskridge shut the Dolphins bats out the rest of the way to pick up the win and literally save the season.
Over his five innings of work, he allowed four hits, walked a pair and struck out three.
Sam Lund went 3-for-4, with two doubles, an RBI and run scored for Dana Hills.
Grant Faris and Sebastian Moore singled and scored.
Colin Macy walked, singled and drove in a pair of runs.
Grant Faris got the loss, after allowing four runs on eight hits over his four innings of work.
Faris walked one and struck out four Apaches’ batters.
Brandon Nguyen led off the bottom of the first inning with a solo shot and he would later walk, single and score a pair of runs.
Alex Dolan went 3-for-4 and scored twice.
Mikey Easter walked, singled, scored and had an RBI.
Easter’s run came in the fifth inning when he stole third base and came home on a bad throw.
Julian Eskridge also helped with his bat, collecting a base on balls, RBI single and scored a run.
Matthew McIntire singled, doubled and made a huge defensive play to save a run for the Apaches at shortstop.
Ari Nurhadi singled, scored and had an RBI.
With the game tied at 5-5, Arcadia coach Nick Lemas had been paying attention to the body language in the Apaches dugout.
Lemas noticed every inning that Hunter Victorio would have a bat in his hands and at one point, Victorio even put a helmet on his head.
So, Lemas decided to give Victorio a shot and Hunter rewarded his coach with a go-ahead pinch-hit RBI single.
Devon Eskridge singled twice in the win.
Up next: Arcadia will play the winner of Thursday’s Harvard-Westlake-Temescal Canyon game next Tuesday.
Quotable:
Arcadia coach, Nick Lemas: “Spencer’s outing today was very un-Casey like, because he couldn’t get ahead of the batters or locate his fastball. He did have success with his curveball, but we felt it was time to bring Julian in and he really had a gutsy performance. We talked over the weekend and I told him he needed to be ready for Wednesday. As he settled in, he gave us what we needed. I told our guys during the game that this isn’t us and to enjoy playing the game. Once they were able to get more comfortable, they played like we knew they’re capable of playing.”
Arcadia senior, Julian Eskridge: “My mind set was to go into the game and compete. Casey is our guy and didn’t have his best stuff, so I wanted to come in and be a guy too. My first inning (the third inning) was kind of like my bullpen and then I was able to settle down and get locked in. I was so proud of the way we came together as a team and got this win. We know what we’re capable of, but to score six runs late was huge for us. We obviously don’t want to fall behind early again, but we have confidence when we’re down in games that we have the talent to come back like we did today. If there’s one thing I’d tell my younger teammates, it would be to come in with confidence.”
Box Score:
DH: 2-1-2-0-0-0-0-(5)
A: 1-0-0-0-5-1-x-(7)
Win: Julian Eskridge
Loss: Grant Faris
HR: Brandon Nguyen (A)
2B: Matthew McIntire (A), Sam Lund (DH) 2
Records: Dana Hills (20-9); Arcadia (22-4)
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