PHOTOS: League-leading Beckman wins fifth in a row in pitcher’s duel against Irvine

Zach Ireland fires a pitch for Beckman Wednesday in a PCL game. (Photo courtesy Jim Tomlin, For OC Sports Zone).

Beckman High School’s Pacific Coast League leading baseball team was challenged Wednesday by Irvine but came out on top 3-2 over the Vaqueros in a pitcher’s duel at Irvine.

It was Beckman’s fifth league win in a row.

The Patriots (12-2, 10-1) got a strong effort from starting pitcher Zach Ireland, who pitched 6 2/3 innings allowing two runs and striking out 12 while allowing four hits. AJ Roettger came on in relief to get the save, retiring the final out.

To see the slide show, click on the first photo:

Starter Caden Shaffer was also impressive, allowing two earned runs and five hits while striking out eight for Irvine (5-11, 5-6).

“Our league is really tight this year,” said Beckman Coach Kevin Lavalle. “Caden Shaffer was tough last year and he was tough earlier this year and I kind of expected that and he pitched really, really well and our guys competed.

“You look back, 3-2 one-run game, probably some windows of opportunities there for both teams and at the end of the day those two runs in the first inning were pretty big and we just gave the ball to Zach Ireland, who has been pitching really, really well. Too bad he couldn’t get a complete game out of it, but he was over the pitch limit and it set up perfect being able to face the seven, eight, nine hitters in that last inning.”

Beckman pushed across two runs in the first inning to take the lead. Cameran Do-Khan led off with a single and stole second base. Then Carter Speights reached on an error. At first he was ruled out at first, but the play was appealed and Speights was ruled safe due to a bobble at first base.

Ashton Kanegae followed with a sacrifice fly to drive in Do-Khan and Speights also scored following two more Irvine errors.

Irvine countered with a run in the bottom of the first on a Tate Zimmerman’s third home run of the year.

Beckman added another run in the fifth, taking advantage of two hit batters and a walk. Pinch-hitter Maddex Soto was hit by a pitch and the Patriots scored on a groundout by Speights.

Irvine got closer in the sixth inning. Zimmerman led off with a triple and scored when Bryan Wilhelm reached on an error. But the Vaqueros went down in order in the seventh.

“That was just a great high school baseball game,” said Irvine Coach Gabriel Cota. “That’s one of those where we got to be a little bit cleaner. If you’re going to beat the number one team in the league, you can’t make mistakes. We made a couple here and there.

“But I don’t want it to get lost Caden Schaffer, our pitcher, did amazing, to pretty much completely shut them down, that’s all you can ask for from him. I definitely want to tip my cap to how well he did.”

As for the reversal in the first inning:

“We can’t rely on the umpires,” Cota said. “We just got to play the game, questionable call, but we don’t play catch and that leads to another run for them.”

—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com