Irvine shortstop Grant Lockwood tries to tag out Woodbridge’s Will Rudy, but Rudy steals second base Friday (Photos courtesy of Jim Tomlin, For OC Sports Zone).
Woodbridge’s baseball team had a better ending to its Pacific Coast League game Friday afternoon against Irvine.
The Warriors, who lost a lead and suffered a 9-8 loss to Irvine in eight innings on Tuesday, pushed across a run in the top of the eighth inning Friday to win 5-4 over the Vaqueros at Irvine.
To see the slide show, please click on the first photo
In the top of the eighth, Noah Reid led off with a single, advanced to second on a sacrifice by Matt Spear and scored on an RBI triple by Jeff Quezada to put the Warriors ahead 5-4.
Then, Spear, who had come on to pitch in the seventh, blanked Irvine (9-4, 4-3) in the bottom of the inning working out of trouble.
Irvine’s Jackson Lyman reached second on an infield single and an error with one out, but Spear got the final two outs.
“It seems like every time we play them, we’re heated in a battle,” said Woodbridge Coach Ryan Brucker. “I was a little disappointed with making seven errors on Tuesday and if we had played a little better, obviously the outcome would have been in our favor.
“But I was real happy with the way they bounced back. It would have been easy for guys to cash it in when they (Irvine) came back again in the seventh. But they didn’t. I was real happy with the fact we regrouped and we came back and got a good at bat from our lead-off hitter Reid and then good execution from Spear and then obviously Jeffrey came up big for us.”
Quezada has had big hits like that before, Brucker said.
“I was just looking for a pitch that I could hit hard,” he said. “And I got the fastball up and I took it to right field and got the job done. It’s fun to play against guys I’ve grown up playing with and it’s fun to come out on top and win. This is a big win to give us some momentum going into Northwood next week and we hope to beat them next week.”
Irvine, which rallied in Tuesday’s game to send it into extra innings, did it again Friday. In the bottom of the seventh, Grant Lockwood was hit by a pitch and Marc Filia doubled to put runners on second and third. Casey Kudell then delivered a sacrifice fly to make it 4-3. Filia later scored on a wild pitch to tie it.
“It was a back and forth game, I think both teams played really well,” said Irvine Coach Gabriel Cota. “We had just so many opportunities and we didn’t cash them in, and that’s baseball. I think we had double digits left on base and we had a lot of big spots where we could have driven some runs in.
“But all the credit to them. They continued to battle, especially after Tuesday. We tied it up in the seventh there and they could have usually folded but they didn’t, they battled and you have to give them credit, they beat us. That’s the bottom line.”
Woodbridge (7-7, 3-4) scored two runs in the first, one of them unearned. Grant Martine drove in one with a sacrifice fly and Reid drove in the other with a single.
In the bottom of the inning, Patrick Hackworth led off with a triple and scored on a sacrifice fly by Lockwood.
Woodbridge scored two runs in the third inning, one unearned. Martine drove in one on a groundout and Reid, who had three hits and two RBI, had an RBI single.
Irvine stayed close with a run in the fourth cutting the lead to 4-2 when Lyman was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
Ryan Barlow started for Irvine before being relieved by Yoni Bracha in the seventh.
Woodbridge starter Aanan Ramanathan pitched the first three and 2/3 innings before being relieved in the fourth by Max Montplaisir. Then Spear got the win finishing up.
Woodbridge outhit Irvine 8-7.
-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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