High School Baseball: Sage Hill falls apart against Buckley
One missed tag by Sage Hill School in the top of the seventh inning ended its shutout and then its baseball season.
After putting up zeros in the first six innings, Sherman Oaks Buckley broke out of a slump in a major way in its final at-bat at Sage Hill. The Griffins scored all seven of their runs in the seventh to upset the top-seeded Lightning, 7-5, in the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 6 playoffs on Friday.
The setback is a heartbreaking one for Sage Hill, which went into the seventh with a 4-0 lead and its ace, Brett Super, trying to go the distance to improve to 10-0. Despite walking two of the three batters he faced in the seventh, Super seemed to be on his way to staying perfect.
After throwing his 110th pitch and walking his fourth batter, Super exited. With one out, Kellen Ochi relieved Super, who had only allowed two hits and struck out seven in 6 1/3 innings. Ochi’s first four pitches went for balls, loading up the bases for Buckley, but then the closer induced what looked to be a game-ending double play.
The grounder went to second baseman Cole Tait, who fielded the ball in between the baseline from first to second. The junior charged toward the runner coming from first base, swiping around his belt area, before throwing to first to complete what Tait thought was a double play that would send Sage Hill to the semifinals for the second time in the program’s history.
Before Sage Hill could celebrate, there was one problem. The base umpire ruled that Tait did not tag out the runner, Alex Gondo. A run scored on the groundout, and with two outs, Buckley put across six more runs on four hits to take a 7-4 lead.
Michael Segal and Jesse Paul each produced two-run doubles for the Griffins in the seventh off Ochi (1-1), while Eben Berg and Nick Cashdan both singled in a run. The seven-run inning marked Sage Hill’s worst of the season. Only one other team, Estancia, had scored seven or more runs in a game against the Lightning.
The meltdown proved to be too much for Sage Hill (20-7) to overcome, seeing its 15-game winning streak snapped by a team it knocked out in the first round a year ago.
“It’s something we’ve been preaching from the beginning of the year,” said Buckley Coach Lou Tapia, referring to his team never quitting, helping it move on to Tuesday’s semifinal against Long Beach St. Anthony.
“After seeing them [beat us, 4-2, at our place] last year, we knew how much work we had to get in.”
Buckley fought back against Academy League champion Sage Hill, which was one of three teams from its league to go down in the quarterfinals on Friday. Los Angeles Salesian edged No. 2 Crean Lutheran, 2-1, on the road, and La Cañada Flintridge Prep held on for a 4-3 win at home against Oxford Academy.
Sage Hill, which matched a single-season record for wins, still had a chance to buck the league trend and rally against Buckley (17-8), the Liberty League champion.
With one out in the bottom of the seventh, Sage Hill loaded the bases for its best hitter, Conner Bock. Henry DaMour led off with a pinch-hit single, and Jack Pelc recorded his second single and reached base for the fourth time. Reliever Max Pratts then walked Ochi, setting things up for Bock, who belted a game-winning two-run home run in the eighth inning to propel Sage Hill to a 5-2 comeback win at Arcadia Rio Hondo Prep in the second round on Tuesday.
Three days later and at home, Bock, a left-handed hitter, quickly fell behind 0-2 against Segal, who came in and replaced Pratts. Bock managed to drive in his second run of the day, this time on a sacrifice fly to left-center field that cut the deficit to two.
Two pitches later, Segal hit Tait to load the bases again for Sage Hill. Segal got out of the jam by getting Super on a fly-ball out to right field for the final out, preventing Sage Hill from advancing to the semifinals for the first time in five years.
“It’s tough,” Sage Hill Coach Dominic Campeau said of the way his team lost, especially after scoring three runs during starter Victor Noval’s three innings, and then adding a run in the sixth, the third and final inning of relief for Max Strenton (6-1). “We had a game plan and we thought we could go ahead and beat those guys. Then I saw that they [again] used [Noval], the same kid who started the last game [for the Griffins, throwing a complete game in an 8-1 win against Nuevo Nuview Bridge in the second round on Wednesday], so I thought we would be in pretty good shape.
“When I saw [Noval], I’m like, ‘Wow! He’s probably going to run out of juice early.’”
At the end, Campeau’s team was the one that ran out of gas.
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CIF Southern Section Division 6 playoffs
Quarterfinals
Buckley 7, Sage Hill 5
SCORE BY INNINGS
Buckley 000 000 7 – 7 6 1
Sage Hill 102 001 1 – 5 5 1
Noval, Strenton (4), Pratts (7), Segal (7) and Miller; Super, Ochi (7) and Bush. W – Strenton, 6-1. L – Ochi, 1-1. Sv – Segal. 2B – Segal (B), Paul (B).