Errors plagued Escalon’s JV baseball boys this week; in one contest, they made the difference between a win and a loss.
The squad did split their Trans-Valley League games with Hughson, winning on the road Tuesday, April 16 but then losing at home on Thursday.
“Tuesday we gave up a couple of runs early but we did win, 7-3,” explained head coach Ken Baptista. “Demetrius Teixeira pitched five innings and kept it close, our defense didn’t help him, we made six errors.”
Hughson pushed across single runs in the first and third innings to go up 2-0.
Escalon was able to tie the game in the fourth inning with key hits from Josh Miller and Tyler Medina.
“Those were big hits for those two, they have been working hard,” said Baptista.
Escalon went up 3-2 with a run in the fifth on an Evan Bava sacrifice fly but Hughson tied it in the bottom of the frame.
After Teixeira battled for his five innings, Orion Hoover came on to pitch the sixth and seventh innings for Escalon and got credit for the win. The JV Cougars scrapped to get two runs in the sixth to go up 5-3 and added two more insurance runs in the seventh for the 7-3 final.
Medina, Mark-Anthony Valente and Cameron LoValvo each had two hits on the day and Escalon had 11 hits total.
Thursday on the home field, things did not go Escalon’s way as they took a 15-5 loss to the Huskies.
“Three of the first four batters scored, we were down 3-0 in the first, 5-0 in the second,” said Baptista.
Alex Guevara pitched four innings and the JV boys did manage to get the game tied by the fourth inning, building off of a two-run homer in the third from Valente and pulling even 5-5 after four.
“Then we couldn’t throw strikes, couldn’t make plays and they scored eight runs in the fifth inning,” Baptista said.
Giavanni Brunetti and Josh Miller both had trouble getting on track on the mound and the lead by Hughson “took the wind out of our sails,” the coach noted.
The loss put them at 7-3 in league play and 12-8 overall. With their bye week at the end of the season, the JV boys will close out TVL action when they return from spring break, with the home and away series with Hilmar.
Though school is off this week, the JV boys will stay busy with a trio of games. They head to Oakdale for action in the Oakdale Tournament starting with a game against host Oakdale on Wednesday, April 24 at 11 a.m.; Thursday against Gregori at 2 p.m. and wrap it up with a Friday game against Turlock.
“These are all difficult opponents, bigger schools,” Baptista said.
He said after a week in which they were lucky to get a TVL win, considering the number of errors they committed, it will be “interesting to see what team shows up” to play in the holiday week tournament.
