Gonzalez hurls complete-game shutout, bats come alive as Napa routs Hercules in season-opener
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
It’s always nice to begin the season with a victory.
But it’s even more rewarding when the year before was a rough year.
That’s what the Napa High baseball team did in the season-opener on Tuesday afternoon when they beat Hercules in convincing fashion, 10-0, in a five-inning mercy rule shorted contest.
“It feels great to get off to a wonderful start,” Napa head coach Jason Chatham said. “If you saw our practices over the last few weeks and you talk to the guys I don’t think anybody in our dugout is surprised that we played well today.”
The game ended in the bottom of the fifth when Napa (1-0) pushed five runs across. It all started when Dylan Snider doubled and scored on a Travis Brayton single. After swiping second base, Brayton scored on a Trent Maher double. A Lucas Brandon sacrifice fly brought in Maher after he stole third base. Finally, Calvin Snider singled and moved to third on a pair of wild pitches before scoring on a Jacks Madigan single.
“The challenge was to try to hit the inside part of the baseball and try to go to the opposite field,” Chatham said of the nice offensive output. “Even though a lot of our big hits were on the pull side, the pitcher game middle-in and our guys made the adjustment.”
In the first, the Grizzlies scored two runs to get off to a nice start. After walking and stealing second, Dylan Snider came home on a Maher double. Later, Maher scored on a Brandon single.
The other three runs came in the third inning. Elliot Zuidema walked before snagging second and third on back-to-back steals before coming home on a Dylan Snider steal of second base. Dylan Snider later scored on the same exact thing when Brayton stole second.
“We really just as a program wanted to get better on the bases,” Chatham continued. “We’ve had a few practices where we just call them aggression practices in terms of the bases and we wanted to really do a lot of things with a short game.”
The final run of the frame came when Brayton scored on a Maher groundout.
Napa also got a solid effort from Omar Gonzalez on the mound in their opener. He worked all five innings and allowed two hits. Also, he struck out seven and walked none in 57 pitches.
“Omar was a little bit up in the zone, (which is a little bit) uncharacteristic of him,” Chatham explained. “But because he was mixing four pitches, I felt like that was able to kind of keep people off the fastball a little bit. The two hits that he did give up, were on fastballs, kind of away that kind of came into the plate a little bit. The first go-around, he was pretty sharp.”
Hercules (0-1) only got a runner into scoring position in the top of the fifth when they had a single and a hit by pitch.
Napa will be back in action again on Wednesday afternoon when they head to Vacaville for a meeting with Wood at 3:30 p.m. It will be a battle of two former Monticello Empire League rivals.
