Daniel Puebla threw a three-hit shutout to propel the Rio Mesa High baseball team to a 6-0 win over visiting Hesperia in the first round of the CIF-Southern Section Division 4 playoffs on Thursday, May 14.
“He commanded the strike zone early on, had all his pitches working and kept them off-balance,” said head coach Jacob Regalado of Puebla. “Every time he takes the mound, we have a chance to win.”
Puebla struck out four and walked one as the Spartans won for the 13th time in 14 games since March 26.
“It’s definitely nice when you’re rolling,” Regalado said.
Freshman Andrew Garcia provided all the offense Rio Mesa would need with a three-run triple in the bottom of the second inning.
“The freshman came up big,” Regalado said. “He got the momentum going there.”
Garcia was 2 for 3 and Rob Rodriguez reached base four times, going 2 for 2 with two walks and two RBIs.
Rio Mesa (18-10) will visit Claremont in Tuesday’s second round.
Nine of the 16 local baseball teams to reach the postseason were in action Thursday, with the remaining seven set to take the field Friday.
Division 2
Westlake 4, Alta Loma 3: Senior shortstop Blake Miller had a hand in all four Westlake runs, going 2 for 3 with an RBI double and a solo home run.
“We don’t win without Blake Miller,” said Westlake coach Wally Barnett.
Miller drove in Kingston Kuna to tie the game in the bottom of the fifth, then scored the eventual winning run on Caden Atkinson’s sacrifice fly.
Atkinson allowed one earned run in six innings on seven hits, striking out four, on the mound. Rocco Cortell earned the save, striking out two in the seventh inning.
“We squeaked through it,” Barnett said. “It had to be fun to watch.”
Westlake (19-8) will visit Alemany in Tuesday’s second round.
Royal 4, El Modena 3 (8 inn.): Matthew Stout’s two-out, two-run double in the bottom of the eighth inning saved the host Highlanders’ season, scoring Ryan Tally and Peyton Visage with the tying and winning runs.
Stout finished 2 for 4. Colten Rainer tripled and scored on Noah Vasquez’s RBI single to give Royal a 1-0 lead in the fifth inning.
Dusty Dunwoody allowed three hits and an unearned run in seven innings, striking out nine. Dean Barkman was the winning pitcher in relief.
Royal (24-3) will visit Yucaipa in Tuesday’s second round.
Chaminade 10, Newbury Park 9: Trailing 6-1 in the second and 7-3 in the third, the visiting Panthers rallied to knock Chaminade starter Jackson Schroeder, a USC commit, out of the game and pull even 7-7 on Tyson Laubacher’s squeeze bunt in the top of the fifth inning.
“Our kids battled back,” Newbury Park coach Curtis Scott said. “We had really good plate discipline.”
Down 10-7 in the seventh, Newbury Park closed within one and left the bases loaded.
“We’re disappointed we came up short,” Scott said. “But I think this team this year showed a lot of grit and character.”
Alan Espinal went 2 for 4 with two RBIs and two runs scored, Caiden Inglehart was 2 for 3 with a run scored, and Mason Mosdale had an RBI single for the Panthers (17-12).
Division 4
Moorpark 9, La Serna 0: Carson Cerny pitched five shutout innings and ripped a two-run double that gave the host Musketeers a 4-0 lead in the second inning.
“Same old same old from him,” Moorpark coach Aaron Garcia said. “They had runners in scoring position and he held them.”
Diego Magana went 3 for 4 with two RBIs and Logan Stotts was 2 for 4 with an RBI and a run scored for Moorpark (20-9), which will visit Monrovia in Tuesday’s second round.
Palm Desert 11, Pacifica 7: The Tritons couldn’t make an early 5-0 lead stand up on the road.
“We had one bad inning and it spiraled,” said Pacifica coach Bryan Willson. “We made some costly errors.”
Pacifica scored four runs in the bottom of the second on RBI singles by Byron Cibrian and Bobby Ramirez and Dario Navarro’s RBI groundout.
Palm Desert responded with 11 straight runs, putting up crooked numbers in the second, third and fourth innings.
Cibrian went 2 for 3 with two runs scored, Ramirez was 2 for 4 with two RBIs, and Ortega scored three runs for Pacifica (14-12).
Division 6
Santa Ana-Calvary Chapel 8, Hueneme 2: The Vikings fell behind 3-0 after three innings and couldn’t recover at Great Park Stadium in Irvine.
“We didn’t play catch like we normally do,” said Hueneme coach Manny Lara.
Akira Tamura was 2 for 3 with a run scored for Hueneme (15-13), which won five of its last seven games to win the Citrus Coast League.
“The boys really came together midseason,” Lara said. “Winning a league title was huge for us.”
Foothill Tech 3, Bloomington 2: Shane White was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded with two outs in the bottom of the seventh to walk it off for the host Dragons at Harry Lyon Park in Ventura.
“You don’t see that often,” said Foothill Tech coach Mike Haas.
Down 2-0, Foothill Tech tied the game in the sixth inning on an RBI single by Robert Juker and RBI double by White.
“The kids never gave up,” said Haas. “Once we got into the sixth inning, it started to click. Hitting is contagious.”
Cooper Casey was 4 for 4 and Drayden Belitski earned the win with a shutout inning in relief for Foothill Tech (15-12), which will host Canyon Springs on Tuesday.
Division 8
Nordhoff 3, Bishop Diego 1: Senior Weston Haley allowed two hits and an unearned run in seven innings, striking out 10, as the host Rangers earned their first playoff win in 11 years.
“He did his thing,” said Nordhoff coach Daniel De Alba. “When he’s on, he’s really consistent. … He just kind of kept his cool.”
Jaxson Middough’s two-run triple and Jameson Moya doubled in Nordhoff’s three-run bottom of the third.
Nordhoff (12-14), which beat El Segundo 2-1 in the Division 4 wild-card round in 2014, will host Nuview Bridge in Tuesday’s second round.
Joe Curley covers baseball for The Star. He can be reached at joe.curley@vcstar.com. For more coverage, follow @vcspreps on Twitter/X, Instagram/Threads, Facebook, Bluesky and TikTok.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Puebla pitches Rio Mesa baseball into CIF-SS Div. 4 second round
Reporting by Joe Curley, Ventura County Star / Ventura County Star
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