Hamilton Outduels Castillo, and USDHS Tops Mission Bay

SAN DIEGO —  Ian Hamilton and Manny Castillo had been down this road before and it has been bumpy for both.

Hamilton of USDHS and Castillo of Mission Bay are the cornerstones of their teams’ pitching staffs. And as the two teams have gone wire to wire for the City Western League championship the past two seasons, these two have had their share of duels.

This year appears no different. The two matched curveballs again Saturday. Castillo had better numbers, but Hamilton got the victory as the Dons beat the Buccaneers, 2-1, at USD’s Cunningham Stadium.

USDHS (15-3) moved to 4-0 in league; Mission Bay (12-6) fell to 2-2 and a tie for second. But this was only the first of three league meetings between the two.

Last year, Hamilton beat Castillo for the league title, but it was Castillo who got the start at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium in the section 2-A final (a 3-0 loss to Grossmont) as the Bucs outlasted the Dons in the playoffs.

Neither Hamilton nor Castillo had found their form this year until Saturday. Both entered the game with earned run averages under 2.00, but Hamilton is only 2-2 and still battling late-inning fatigue after a long basketball season. Castillo (2-3) is finally 100% after he sprained his left ankle the final week of wrestling season.

Hamilton beat Mission Bay for only the second time in six starts. The Bucs had plenty of opportunities to beat him again Saturday, but they stranded 11 runners and failed to capitalize on two errors. The second of those miscues--Dons second baseman Tony Bruno dropping a pop-up in shallow center field--put the tying run on second base with no outs in the seventh.

But Hamilton kept his cool and retird the next three hitters.

Both pitchers--Hamilton, a 6-foot-4, redheaded right-hander, and Castillo, a mustachioed 5-6 left-hander--struggled in only one inning. Hamilton survived the fifth; Castillo allowed both Dons runs in the third.

That was difference.

“I didn’t expect to keep them to one run,” said Hamilton, who went seven innings, allowing an unearned run and seven hits with three strikeouts and three walks. “They’re a good hitting team and it was getting pretty tense out there with the errors.

“Nothing’s really been going my way this year, until today.”

“It’s been the same for me,” said Castillo, who allowed five hits while walking two (one intentionally) and striking out eight in six innings. “We both did a good job. It’s hard to lose like this.”

Castillo opened the third by walking Robb Floco on four pitches. One out later, Castillo was still trying to find the strike zone and threw a fastball down the middle that leadoff hitter David Cesena sent on one hop to the center-field fence 385 feet away. After striking out Chris Richard for the second out, Castillo allowed a line single to left by Jeff Moore that scored Cesena with the second run.

Hamilton also worked around two walks and a single in the fifth.

Mission Bay left two more on base in the sixth, cashing in their only run on Bruno’s fielding error to open the inning and singles by John Pelligren and Joe Enomoto. But, again, Hamilton used the inside fastball to force Ibarra--who had two hits at that point--to pop to second to end the threat.

Finally in the seventh, Danny Gil, aboard on the dropped pop fly, was left standing on third base when Hamilton got the next three batters to ground out.

“It’s hard to lose close games,” said Castillo, sitting alone on the bench afterward. “We got a lot of hits, just not at the right times.”

In a nonleague game

Oceanside 5, Carson City (Nev.) 4--Brian Hall’s single to left-center scored Carl Marthis, who had singled, stole second and third, with the winning run in the seventh. Brian Norris had two RBI singles, Rich Day had three hits and Keith Humerickhouse had two hits and two RBIs for Oceanside (11-8-2). Carson City fell to 21-4.