High School Baseball: Sage Hill’s Super pitcher
Five games into Sage Hill School’s baseball season, Brett Super unveiled his cape in the dugout. It seems like he hasn’t taken off the Superman-like costume.
While the color of the cape is green and there is no “S” on the front of his chest, Super has been almost untouchable on the mound. Like Superman, Super rarely loses.
Super hasn’t lost all season. The right-hander is a perfect 8-0, and in one out outing, he was perfect.
For a pitcher, there’s no better performance than a perfect game. Super delivered one last week.
The sophomore struck out 12 of the 15 batters he faced in a 12-0 win on the road against Whitney. The game only lasted five innings because of the 10-run mercy rule, but the way Super threw, retiring the next six batters in order wouldn’t have been an issue.
Super capped Academy League play as strong as he started it. In Sage Hill’s opener, he tossed a no-hitter and struck out 14 in a 10-0 win at Brethren Christian on March 24. Six weeks later, Super’s perfect game helped Sage Hill claim its first undefeated league title.
Sage Hill went 12-0 in league, half of those wins Super earned. You might think the perfect game or the no-hitter is Super’s highlight this year, but neither is.
The one game that stands out the most to Super was the one he couldn’t finish against defending league champion Crean Lutheran on April 28. The five earned runs Super allowed in 35 innings in league came on the road against the Saints.
Super gave it all he had, throwing 109 pitches in six innings. He exited with a one-run lead, and he and Kellen Ochi switched places in the seventh, Super moved to shortstop and Ochi took the ball in the seventh, trying to close things out.
Two errors and a walk almost derailed Ochi’s chances.
With one out, the Saints loaded the bases for their clean-up hitter, Chris Cooper. Ochi induced a hard-hit grounder to third baseman Parker Reposa, who threw home to get the second out. Ochi then struck out the next batter to keep Sage Hill’s record flawless in league.
“I had never been more excited about watching a swing and miss from shortstop,” said Super, who has mowed down his share of hitters this year.
Super has 85 strikeouts in 59 innings, and three times he has fanned 10 or more in a game. The first time he reached double-digit strikeouts was in a nonleague game at Bolsa Grande on March 7, in his second start of the season.
This is when Super took his cape to the game, storing it in his bag. He hid it from his teammates and coaches, looking for the appropriate time to put on the cape. He found it right after Sage Hill routed Bolsa Grande, 21-0, in a five-inning affair.
After striking out 10 and allowing three hits and two walks to pick up his first win, Super emerged from the dugout with the cape. The Lightning players and coaches all laughed, but there was a reason why Super wore the cape.
A week earlier, Coach Dominic Campeau had challenged Super after his first outing against University. Super went four innings, giving up an earned run in a no decision the Trojans went on to win, 5-4, to sweep a double-header. Campeau wasn’t too happy about dropping the first two games of the season.
“I remember … [Campeau] was like, ‘Super, you really need to focus more and take this game more seriously,’ and I was like, ‘OK. I’ll do that,’” Super said. “The next game I pitched I threw a pretty good game against Bolsa Grande and I brought [out] a cape.
“I was like, ‘Hey! This might be important to have, this might be kind of funny.’”
Campeau appreciated Super’s sense of humor. He even took a picture of Super in a Superman pose.
With the CIF Southern Section Division 6 playoffs starting next week, Campeau is going to need Super to be super if Sage Hill plans to make a run at its first section title. Campeau expects Sage Hill, which is 18-6 overall and ranked No. 2 in Division 6, to earn one of the top two seeds when the postseason pairings are released on Monday.
Opponents are still searching for Super’s kryptonite. He doesn’t appear intimidating at 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds, and he doesn’t throw hard, from the high 70s to the low 80s. Nevertheless, hitters are batting a measly .129 against Super, who has a 0.83 earned-run average. He has good control, having walked 23 and hit four batters in 59 innings.
Super credits his catcher, Tobias Bush, for a lot of his success. The junior calls most of the pitches when Super is throwing.
“Throughout the entire game I might shake him off once,” Super said, “and then I’ll give up a hit, and I’ll be like, ‘Gosh darn it!’”
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Brett Super
Born: Feb. 17, 1999
Hometown: Newport Beach
Height: 5-foot-9
Weight: 150 pounds
Year: Sophomore
Coach: Dominic Campeau
Favorite food: Cheeseburger
Favorite movie: “Bull Durham”
Favorite athletic moment: “Watching Kellen [Ochi] get out of the bases loaded jam against Crean Lutheran when we were only up one in the bottom of the seventh.”
Week in review: Super threw a perfect game against Whitney, striking out 12 of the 15 batters he faced in a 12-0 win that ended in the fifth inning because of the 10-run mercy rule.