Dehzad’s two-run double pushes Vintage past Justin-Siena in league-opener
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Baseball in the Vine Valley League has been extremely competitive since the league started three years ago.
On Wednesday, we saw that sentiment continue to be true when Vintage beat Justin-Siena 6-5. The win was the first for Vintage manager Billy Smith.
“It’s It feels good, but I almost blew it as well,” Smith explained. “Everybody had their little quirks today. I had a couple and I’ll learn from them and relax a bit. Again, watching these kids play baseball is fun.”
“The butterflies are definitely there in the first game,” Vintage senior shortstop Alex Dehzad explained. “It was a good game, and close throughout the whole game. We just did what we had to do – came up with big hits. For our first game, it was a little shaky. (We) could’ve played better, could have made more plays. But yeah, good game all around.”
The Braves (1-1 overall, 0-1 VVAL) appeared to have the game in hand after scoring two in the bottom of the sixth when a Noah Young single brought in Nick Andrews and Dalen Tinsley. Andrews reached base on a double while Tinsley had a double.
“His first at-bats of the season, so as the game went on he got a little better,” Justin-Siena skipper Jeremy Tayson said of Young’s effort. “(He) had a nice line drive into right-center. Noah’s just getting his baseball legs underneath him and the more he plays, the better he’s going to get. I anticipate him having an all-league caliber season.”
However, the seventh inning saw the Crushers (1-0, 1-0 VVAL) take the lead on a two-RBI single by Alex Dehzad that scored Davide Migotto and Nick Schuttish. Migotto reached on a single that was followed by Schuttish getting hit by a pitch.
“Just to do a job,” Dehzad said as to what he was thinking before getting the game-winning hit. “Try and get some runners in, get us the lead. Just find the gap. I didn’t exactly do my job by putting the ball to third but still got the job done.”
Vintage pushed across the game’s first runs in the top of the third. After Migotto walked and Schuttish doubled, a double by Ian Avalos brought them both home.
In the bottom half, Justin-Siena took their first lead when they were able to push across three runs. Tinsley, Young, and Daniel Kelly all walked and then were brought home on a Madden Edwards double.
The Crushers knotted things up in the top of the when Erik Kvidahl singled before being brought home on a Sam Gomez single that dropped in left field.
The top of the fifth saw Vintage take their first lead when Avalos doubled and scored on a Dehzad single.
Both starting pitchers got no-decisions.
Dylan Rody started for the Crushers. He went 2.2 innings and allowed three runs. The senior walked three and struck out two on the day.
Getting the win in relief was Jorge Lopez-Rios. Lopez-Rios wiggled out of a bases-loaded, nobody-out situation in the bottom of the fifth. Connor Smith recorded the save.
“We saw Rody go out and he grinded,” Smith said. “He ran out of gas and we went to Jorge and Jorge didn’t find himself until the bases (were) loaded and I think he took a step back off the mound and remembered all of his Kiwanis days in Little League. That was a huge, huge out. He got a strikeout, pop up, and then a strikeout, and with bases loaded that was that was awesome.”
Andrews went three innings. The junior allowed two runs, both earned. He also struck out two and walked one.
“He was on a pitch count,” Tayson said of Andrews. “He was on 30 pitches, he threw 29. He did exactly what we wanted him to do. We kind of went with an opener strategy and he put the two zeros on the board we wanted him to.”
Taking the loss was David Elias.
Both teams will be in action in the coming days. Vintage will host Sonoma Valley on Friday at 4 pm in their home-opener. Meanwhile, Justin-Siena will have the league bye on Friday and then host Montgomery-Santa Rosa on Saturday at 12 pm.
In other VVAL baseball action Wednesday, Napa beat American Canyon 17-3 in five innings and Casa Grande-Petaluma beat Sonoma Valley 7-0.
