Rob Rodriguez delivered an all-time moment for the Rio Mesa High baseball program.
With the Spartans down to their final strike, the star first baseman caught a fastball over the plate and hit it deep to center field to send Rio Mesa to its first sectional semifinal in 19 years.
Staring down an 0-2 count with two outs and his team trailing by a run in the bottom of the eighth inning, Rodriguez drove in the tying and winning runs to beat visiting Saugus and grab an implausible 2-1 victory in a CIF-Southern Section Division 4 quarterfinal game on Friday, May 22, in Oxnard.
“We are never out of it,” said Rodriguez, shortly before being dunked in a Gatorade bath by his teammates. “You can doubt us all you want. We can be one out, one strike away, but we are never out of it with this group of guys.”
Rio Mesa (20-10) will travel to face Glendora (18-11) for a semifinal game on Tuesday.
While Rodriguez was the late-game hero, senior pitcher Daniel Puebla was the foundation of the win.
The junior allowed only two hits and an unearned run in eight innings of work, striking out nine. He faced 29 batters without allowing a walk and held Saugus to its second-lowest output of the season.
“He has been pitching great all year,” Rio Mesa head coach Jacob Regalado said. “I didn’t think, after a couple of games this year, that he could look better, but today is the best he has ever looked.”
Puebla and Rodriguez partnered up for a pickoff in the top of the fifth inning.
“Daniel Puebla, man. What else can you say?” Rodriguez said. “He is our No. 1 guy, No. 1 pitcher in the county and it showed. Eight innings strong, I don’t know how many Ks, but man, he did more than what we could ask for. He is awesome. That’s my guy.”
After a scoreless seven innings, the Spartans had to claw back from the brink after allowing an unearned run in the top of the eighth.
After a Saugus bunt, an errant throw allowed the runner to advance to third. Saugus took the lead when the next batter followed with an infield grounder.
“It’s the beauty of baseball,” Rodriguez said. “It comes down to the little things. Little mistakes, that’s what causes games to be broken up, but we were never out of it.”
Jakob Zarate got the bottom of the eighth inning started off by drawing a walk. Marco Grey laid down a sacrifice bunt to move him over to second. Alec Fontyn was hit by a pitch to put the winning run on first base before Rodriguez’s heroics.
The way the game ended was proof of something Regalado first told his team in the moments after a 5-3 loss to Camarillo to start the season 1-5.
It ain’t over ’til it’s over.
“I told them, ‘Just wait,’ ” Regalado said. “Just wait until Marco Grey comes off his 30-day sitout. Just wait until my centerfielder Eric Barron gets his first hit because he started the year 0-22. Just wait until we get Rob and Puebla on a Tuesday-Friday schedule. I said, ‘We are a dangerous team — just wait.’ ”
Rio Mesa last reached the sectional semifinals in 2007, when it beat West Torrance, Upland and Crescenta Valley before falling 3-2 to eventual champion Vista Murrieta in the Division 2 semifinals.
Rodriguez went 3 for 3 with two RBIs and two doubles. Grey was the only other Spartan to log a hit in the defensive win, with Zarate and Fontyn scoring both of the team’s two runs after reaching base on walks.
Leo Lujan played a strong game at shortstop, accounting for all three outs in the bottom of the fourth inning.
“If you have an out, you have a chance,” Regalado said. “I don’t care what the score is, I don’t care what the count is. If you have an out, you have a chance to win a baseball game and we showed that today.”
Dominic Massimino is a staff writer for The Star. He can be reached at dominic.massimino@vcstar.com. For more coverage, follow @vcsdominic on Twitter and Instagram.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Rio Mesa reaches CIF-SS baseball semifinals in dramatic fashion
Reporting by Dominic Massimino, Ventura County Star / Ventura County Star
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