Super strikes out 13 for Sage
The first pitch by Brett Super at Sage Hill School was almost three hours away, yet the team he was going to face on Thursday arrived on campus at 12:30 p.m.
Seeing an opponent get to the field at that time for a 3:15 start caught Coach Dominic Campeau by surprise.
“I was proctoring an exam and I saw them come in from my classroom, and I was like, ‘What are these guys doing here?’” Campeau said.
Yermo Silver Valley had a long way to travel, 134 miles, to play the top-seeded Lightning in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division 6 playoffs.
The Trojans showed up way early, and the way Super began to throw, he was going to send them home in a hurry.
Super struck out 13 in Sage Hill’s 3-0 win. The junior allowed one hit and two walks, and only three batters reached based against Super.
The right-hander had a perfect game going with two outs in the top of the sixth inning. He retired the first 17 batters he faced, 11 via strikeout, two popped out to first base, two grounded out and two flew out to the outfield.
Super had been in this situation before. He tossed a perfect game in a 3-0 win at Cerritos Valley Christian on March 10, his first came a year ago, but never had he been so perfect in the postseason.
Super lost the perfect game by walking Brody Christensen on seven pitches. He then lost his cool, getting visibly upset when the strike zone shrunk. He walked the next batter on six pitches, and Trey Chavez followed that up with a bloop single to right field.
Gone was Super’s perfect game. Gone was Super’s no-hitter. With the bases loaded and Silver Valley’s Jon Ramirez up, the game was in jeopardy.
“I was like, ‘Oh, shoot! I got an ump who doesn’t like me and I got the No. 3 batter … up who coach [in] the first inning told me he was batting like .466 or something.’ I was like, ‘All right. This is lining up in my favor.’”
Despite missing on his first two pitches to Ramirez, Super bounced back. He mowed down Ramirez, escaping trouble and the Lightning advanced to the second round.
“He was definitely the best pitcher we’ve seen all season,” Silver Valley Coach Mike Meyer said of Super, who also drove in a run on a sacrifice fly, the first of two runs the Lightning scored in that fashion in the first inning. “[His fastball] was a little faster than anything we’ve seen this season.”
Super improved to 11-0 and lowered his earned-run average to 0.60. His first two strikeouts in the first inning helped Super break his Sage Hill single-season record for strikeouts, and he now has 116 in 81 innings this year.
Super also broke Sage Hill’s single-season record for wins, which he and freshman Ashwin Chona previously held.
Chona (10-0) will get his chance to share that mark again with Super. Chona is getting the start for Sage Hill (24-1) at Winchester Temecula Prep (11-9-1) in the second round on Tuesday.
This time, it’s Sage Hill’s turn to hit the road.
Temecula Prep opened the playoffs with a 7-1 win at Bermuda Dunes Desert Christian Academy on Thursday. The Patriots play host to the second-round game because they traveled in the first round and Sage Hill was at home.
“It’s rough,” Campeau said of having to hit the road in the playoffs, his team only has to go 76 miles, less than half of what Silver Valley did to get to Sage Hill. “You’re looking at the bracket. If we play these guys, you might as well get a plane and fly there, or be on the bus for five hours.”
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CIF Southern Section Division 6
First round
SCORE BY INNINGS
Sage Hill 3, Silver Valley 0
Silver Valley 000 0 – 0 1 1
Sage Hill 200 100 x – 3 6 0
T. Chavez and Mesa; Super and Bush. W – Super, 11-0. L – T. Chavez, 5-5. 3B – Bush (SH).
