Harbor’s rally falls short against Marina
As overcast as the skies were at the start of Newport Harbor High’s baseball game on Wednesday, the Sunset League standings looked just as cloudy. Once the sun came out, things began to clear up in the race to finish in the top three in league.
The Sailors still find themselves out of the playoff picture. They suffered a tough 2-1 setback to first-place Marina at home.
The Vikings snapped Newport Harbor’s three-game winning streak in league and they clinched one of the league’s three automatic berths into the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs. Newport Harbor shares fourth place in league with Fountain Valley at 5-7. Both are a game back of Edison and Huntington Beach, which are in a tie for second.
With three games left in league, the Vikings (19-8, 9-3 in league), ranked No. 9 in the Division 1 poll, stayed two games ahead of the Chargers and Oilers by barely holding on to defeat the Sailors. Jared Minor threw a complete game, striking out nine, walking one, and allowing one run and five hits.
The lone run surrendered by Minor came in the bottom of the seventh, when the Sailors produced three hits. With two outs, the Sailors had the game-tying run on at second base and the go-ahead run on at first base, but the sophomore right-hander got Dylan Kaplan to fly out to center field. Will Pingle had a good jump on the ball before sliding on one knee to make the catch.
“The kid pitched a great game,” Newport Harbor Coach Evan Chalmers said of Minor, who threw 102 pitches, 75 for strikes.
Minor received some help from his outfield. The defensive play to get the final out turned out to be the second best by Marina’s outfield.
Only right fielder Tyler Abend’s grab in the fifth inning topped Pingle’s effort.
With one out, a runner on second base and the Vikings up, 1-0, Kaplan hit a shot toward the gap in right-center field. Kaplan seemed headed for extra bases, until Abend, in full pursuit, left his feet and came up with the ball. After he made the spectacular diving catch, Abend quickly rose to his feet and fired to second base for an inning-ending double play.
Abend robbed Kaplan and the Sailors, who most likely have to win their final three league contests for any shot at finishing second or third and securing their first postseason berth in two years. They came so close to moving a game within second place.
“We’ll go over there and give it a shot,” said Chalmers, referring to Newport Harbor’s game at Marina on Friday at 3:15 p.m. “We’ll put [Luke] Genova up on the hill and see what happens. We’re not scared of anybody in this league. We just have to make sure that we stay within ourselves and make sure that we make the plays that we’re supposed to make.”
One play the Sailors (10-13 overall) didn’t attempt to make could’ve given their starter Jeremiah Sheldon (5-5) an early lead.
The second inning featured the first runner to reach base and the first hit, both achieved by the Sailors. Genova got onboard when second baseman Steven Casas didn’t field a routine grounder.
After Minor struck out his second batter swinging in the second inning, Cade Seabold smacked the 0-1 pitch to left field for a double. The ball reached the fence, but Chalmers, the third-base coach, decided to hold Genova at third base. The Sailors stranded both Genova and Seabold, as Minor got Max Crabbe to ground out to shortstop to end the threat.
The game remained scoreless through three innings, Sheldon, a lefty, retiring all nine batters he faced. Four of those he struck out.
It wasn’t until the fourth inning that Marina hit Sheldon, who allowed five hits and two earned runs, struck out six and walked one. Pingle, the team’s left-handed leadoff hitter, went the other way, singling to left field. Pingle swiped second base on the first pitch to Casas.
Casas’ hard-hit grounder to third base was unable to move Pingle because of a nice play by Jake Genova. What put Pingle at third was a wild pitch by Sheldon. His 0-2 pitch to Griffin Hennessey sailed over Crabbe, the catcher.
Three pitches later, Hennessey’s dribbler toward the mound allowed Pingle to score. Sheldon’s only play was to first, and it wasn’t an easy one. He fielded the ball and quickly spun to his right to make the throw to get the second out.
The fifth inning was the Sailors’ next best chance to even things up. Seabold led off, doubling for the second time, this one down the left-field line. Instead of bunting Seabold over to third base, Newport Harbor let Crabbe swing and he hit a sharp grounder to Hennessey at shortstop, and he held Seabold at second before throwing to first for the out. Three pitches later, Abend made his dazzling catch in right-center field.
“I thought it was going to get down,” Chalmers said of the ball. “The kid … was moving a lot faster than he looked. He covers some ground.”
Abend also tracked down Jake Genova’s deep shot to right field in the sixth inning.
The following inning, Jake’s twin brother, Luke, doubled down the third-base line with one out. Josh Spicer followed that up with a single to center, leaving runners on the corners for Seabold, who had hit Minor hard twice.
Minor struck Seabold out on eight pitches, blowing a fastball right by him. After Crabbe’s single to left field cut the deficit to 2-1, Minor was able to get Kaplan out on the first pitch.
The Vikings have one more with the Sailors, before closing out league next week with two games with Los Alamitos.
“We got a two-game advantage on Edison and Huntington Beach, and we just got to keep winning,” Marina Coach Robert Marshall said of leading the Vikings to their first league title in 11 years. “If we win, then we don’t have to worry about what they do.”
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Sunset League
Marina 2, Newport Harbor 1
SCORE BY INNINGS
Marina 000 101 0 – 2 5 1
Newport 000 000 1 – 1 5 1
Minor and Verdugo; Sheldon and Crabbe. W – Minor. L – Sheldon, 5-5. 2B – Seabold (NH) 2, L. Genova (NH).
