Napa hangs with first-place Sonoma Valley, but ultimately comes up just short
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Baseball can be weird at times due to the fact that the best team won’t always win if a pitcher is dominating.
On Friday, the Napa High baseball team almost pulled off an upset over first-place Sonoma Valley, but lost by a final of 4-2.
Even though his team came up short in the contest Napa coach Jason Chatham was still happy with the performance of his team.
“I thought we took care of the baseball better today,” he explained. “We made most of the plays, and I thought we did a good job of staying within ourselves. We didn’t try to do anything to cute, we just made plays.”
It also helped that Napa starter Omar Gonzalez dazzled on the mound again. The junior went a complete game, struck out four, had no walks, and threw only 85 pitches.
“Omar was good again,” Chatham said of his junior right hander. “In fact, I’d say he was better than good. At one point in the fourth inning, I think he had eight balls total that he had thrown. He was very efficient, and he kept them off-balance, as Omar does.
Sonoma Valley (16-4 overall, 8-3 Vine Valley Athletic League) scored all their runs in the top of the fifth inning.
Napa (2-20, 2-9 VVAL) scored their only two runs in the bottom of the sixth. Gonzalez reached on an error and Trent Maher doubled to set it up for Travis Brayton who singled them both home.
“I thought that was a pretty evenly played game except for their fifth inning and our sixth inning,” Chatham said. “Everything else was evenly played. They got some balls in the gap, and they got some guys on. They had first and third on us, and then the ball found the outfield grass, and that’s really the difference. We got a couple, we clawed back at the end there, but it wasn’t enough.”
The Grizzlies also had chances to score in the first, fourth, and seventh innings, but ultimately were unable to capitalize on their opportunities.
Napa’s top hitters on the day were Maher (2-for-3, single, double, run, stolen base), Brayton (1-for-3, single, 2 RBIs), and Lucas Brandon (1-for-3, single).
Napa’s next game will be their season finale next Wednesday at 4 p.m. It’ll also be Senior day on Wednesday. As for Sonoma Valley, they’ll host Sac-Joaquin Section power Vacaville Saturday night at 6 p.m., and then they’ll make a return trip to Napa on Wednesday to face Justin-Siena at 4 p.m. to end the regular season.
