By Rick Assad
After slightly more than three hours and in a wild first two innings in which a dozen runs were scored, the Burbank High and Burroughs Pacific League baseball game was settled in the ninth inning when the visiting Bears tallied four runs and clinched a 10-6 victory on Tuesday night before a jammed-packed audience.
Eight batters came to the plate in the frame and three hits were produced and included senior Nickolas Fritz’s infield single, senior Dylan Conahan’s run batted in single to left field and junior Kyle Smith’s two-run base hit to right center. There was also a run-scoring infield grounder by sophomore Devin Whittekiend.
“What was impressive was the at-bats at the bottom of the lineup put together,” Burroughs coach Matt Magallon said. “They did a great job working counts and getting on base.”
The contest began with Burroughs (19-5 and 11-2 in league), which didn’t get a hit in the frame, taking a 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning.
In the stanza, Burbank (7-13 and 6-7 in league) committed two of its three errors. There was also a scoring grounder by senior Willan Armes.
“Yeah, that was a very fun game, and I was glad to be a part of it,” said Burroughs senior second baseman Nate Chapman, who singled in the game and played shortstop because of an arm injury to sophomore Logan Drossin. “We wouldn’t expect less from a rival game. [Senior] Elvis [Moreno] pitched a heck of a game in relief and kept us in it. It was a team win and everyone contributed in some way or another. We didn’t back down and Kyle and Dylan came up with some big hits in the last inning.”
The Bulldogs responded by slicing the lead to 3-1 in the bottom of the first as the hosts collected three hits.
The run scored when senior Jake Reyes hit into a double play.
The hits rendered came off the bats of senior Ryan Sebastian, who singled to center, junior Robert Snyder [three singles], who singled to right center and senior Bryant Johnson, who slapped a single to left field.
“I feel like that was a winnable game for us, but we just came out on the wrong end,” Sebastian said. “I’m confident about Friday’s game because we were the better hitters. We just let nerves get the best of us in the first inning.”
The Bears extended their advantage to 6-1 in the second as freshman Elliot Ross drilled a run-scoring single up the middle and Fritz added a run-tallying grounder. Smith began the inning by blooping a single to left center.
Down by five runs, the Bulldogs trotted nine batters to home plate and scored five runs on two hits and one error.
Junior Michael Bui drilled a single off the screen in left field and Snyder ripped a two-run double to right field. Reyes added a sacrifice fly to right.
“I liked that my team’s ability to weather the storm and fight back,” said Burbank coach Bob Hart, who was presented with a plaque for twenty years of service as the Burbank headman before the game which also paid tribute to the seniors. “I liked the class they displayed. I liked the fact that they didn’t come down to the level with the banter and smack talk/disrespect.”
Hart added: “But that’s a quality loss. Burroughs is a talented team, and we will try to come out and do a better job on Friday,” he said.
Reyes also singled as did sophomore Tomas Angel (two hits) for the Bulldogs.
Junior Kenny Montgomery was the starting pitcher for the Bears and left in the second inning and Moreno was relieved after the eighth inning.
Montgomery went one-plus innings, allowed four hits and two walks while Moreno toured seven frames and surrendered three hits and added five strikeouts with one walk and three hit batters.
Burroughs sophomore Jack Guest worked the last inning and yielded one hit.
Snyder was the starter on the mound and toured six and one-third innings, allowing three hits, fanning four, walking two and hitting five batters and was relieved in the seventh inning by senior Miklo Reynoso, who worked two and one-third innings, giving up four hits, striking out one, walking one and hitting one batter.
“I was certainly getting tired in the later innings, but with a game that means so much to both teams, I was running on pure adrenaline,” Snyder said. “Even when I felt like I didn’t have much left in me, I kept pushing with everything I had, and while that sometimes came at a cost of control, I was able to string enough strikes together to keep us in the game.”
Snyder is looking for a better outcome in their next meeting.
“It wasn’t the outcome we wanted, but I’m so proud of our team,” he said. “We really gave it our all, and we are going to take it to them on Friday.”
On Friday in the regular season finale, Burroughs will host Burbank and the start time is 6:30 p.m.
