High School Baseball: Super helps Sage Hill advance
On the white dry erase board in the Sage Hill School dugout, Coach Dominic Campeau wrote “4 more to go.” Four more to go as in the number of games Sage Hill must win to claim its first CIF Southern Section baseball title.
The Lightning got the first one out of the way in the Division 6 playoffs. While the start to the postseason wasn’t Sage Hill’s sharpest performance, the top-seeded team got the result it wanted at home, beating Ojai Villanova Prep, 6-2, on Friday.
Sage Hill went nine days without playing a game and Campeau said the rust showed. The team committed a handful of mistakes in the infield and on the base pads. Sage Hill could afford to get away with the lapses because it had its ace, Brett Super, on the mound in the first round.
Twelve of the 18 outs Super recorded were via strikeout. The sophomore improved to 9-0 after surrendering two runs and four hits, while walking four in six innings.
When it ended and Sage Hill (19-6) advanced to the second round for the second straight year because of Super’s arm, the right-hander breathed a sigh of relief.
“Today was our finals day, so it was really stressful,” said Super, who’s now looking forward to traveling in the second round to play Arcadia Rio Hondo Prep (17-5) on Tuesday at 3:15 p.m. “Coming out of my last final I kind of felt like a bag. But I was like [telling myself], ‘Time to focus and play baseball.’”
Super, who isn’t used to giving up a leadoff single, gave up a hit on the first pitch he threw to Eastin Bartholio. The one hitter that Super struggled with was Bartholio, who recorded three of his team’s four hits off Super.
Super finally got Bartholio out, coming at a good time with Sage Hill up, 5-2, in the sixth. With the bases loaded and two outs, Super induced Bartholio to hit a grounder to first baseman Michael Helton, who stepped on the bag to get Super out of another bases-loaded jam.
Super, who had allowed only two hits in his previous two starts, which included a perfect game, convinced Campeau that he could finish the game. He came out for the seventh to face Ryan Pierson, a batter he had struck out three times. Super walked him, and Campeau pulled Super after his 103rd pitch in favor of Kellen Ochi.
“I saw that he was getting tired, especially in the inning before,” Campeau said of Super, who helped Ochi close things out by turning a game-ending double play at shortstop to send Villanova Prep home.
The ride back for the Wildcats (11-9) would be a long one: 125 miles. Their first playoff appearance in three years got off on a bad note.
Garett Lockwood, who went six innings, plunked Jack Pelc on his fifth offering. Two pitches later, Lockwood hurt himself again. He got Ochi to bounce one right back to the mound. Lockwood tried to start a double play, but his throw went wide and low of the second-base bag.
The error was the first of two in the first inning by the Wildcats. The other mistake came shortly after Conner Bock’s groundout to second scored Ochi. Sage Hill took a 2-0 lead when first baseman David Bender III bobbled a throw from the shortstop that would’ve been the third out.
After Super struck out the side in order in the top of the second, the miscues continued for the visitors in the bottom half of the inning. With two outs, the Wildcats committed two errors — one at second base and the other in center field — and Sage Hill scored twice to go ahead, 4-0.
Villanova Prep cut the deficit in half in the third. The smallest player, Will McColgan, sparked the Wildcats’ two-run third. Super found it difficult to find the strike zone against a 5-foot freshman, walking McColgan on six pitches.
Super was in trouble after Villanova Prep got consecutive hits to load the bases with no outs. Super picked up his sixth strikeout, following that up with a flyout.
It appeared Super would get out of the inning unscathed. He knocked down a grounder with his glove. Super fielded the ball to his right, but he rushed the throw to first, firing it wide of Helton’s reach and Villanova Prep made it 4-2 on the error.
The score stayed the same, until the fifth. Parker Reposa smashed a leadoff triple to right-center field, giving him his second hit. Bock brought him home with a sacrifice fly to right field, increasing the Lightning lead to 5-2.
In the sixth, Sage Hill added another run off Lockwood (4-3), who struck out six, allowed five hits, hit two and walked one. Lockwood started against a top-five team in Division 6 for the second time this year. Last month, the senior went eight innings in the Wildcats’ 3-2 extra-inning win at home against No. 5 Fillmore, which went on to win the Frontier League.
“Our game most of the year has been pitching and defense,” said Villanova Prep Coach Carson Brown, whose team committed five errors. “We don’t score a lot of runs.”
CIF Division 6 playoffs
First round
Sage Hill 6, Villanova Prep 2
SCORE BY INNINGS
Villanova 020 000 0 – 2 5 5
Sage Hill 220 011 x – 6 5 2
Lockwood and Riggs; Super, Ochi (7) and Bush. W – Super, 9-0. L – Lockwood, 4-3. 2B – Bock (SH). 3B – Reposa (SH).
Twitter: @DCPenaloza