Fourth inning offensive eruption leads Napa past Wood and to first win in home-opener
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
It’s always nice to put up a big inning when there are two outs. A six-run inning, in general, is a good way to assure a victory.
The Napa High baseball used a six-run fourth to beat former MEL rival Wood-Vacaville 9-2 in their home-opener on Saturday at Mount Field.
The main highlight in the fourth came when senior catcher Dylan Snider came to bat with Connor Ross at second. He roped a two-run homer to right-center that was also the first home run of his high school career. What makes it even better is that Snider is a switch hitter and the home run came batting left-handed.
“Honestly, I was just looking (up the) middle,” Snider said of his home run. “Base hit scores him. Deep hard ground ball, fly ball whatever gets him over – just get a job done. He left a high curveball (and I) just turned on it (and it went) over the fence.”
Napa (1-1) took the lead that inning on an RBI triple by Kaleb Matulich that brought in Dylan Scopesi, who had reached by way of fielder’s choice.
“I thought our approach was pretty good,” Napa High manager Jason Chatham said of the sixth inning. “There’s a couple of times where I thought we could have been a little better. We want to be hunters out there. There are some times where we were maybe a little bit on our heels with our approach, but for the most part, (in) the second game of the season, that was a pretty good aggressive approach that I took. I mean, we want to win games with our offense and that’s what we did today.”
In the fourth, an Elliot Zuidema single scored Matullich. Zuidema later scored on a wild pitch. After singling, Graham Chapouris scored on an infield single by Ross.
The Grizzlies pushed a pair of runs across in the sixth as well. After Ross reached on yet another infield single, he later scored on a triple by Snider. Then, a Leo Saldivar sacrifice fly to center brought in Snider.
Napa also scored a run in the first when Chapouris walked and stole second before coming home on a Snider triple.
Snider led the Grizzlies offensive attack by 3-for-4 with a home run, two triples, 4 RBIs, and two runs scored.
Also having good days at the plate were Scopesi (2-for-2 HBP and a run), Connor Ross (3-for-4, two stolen bases, two runs, and one RBI), Matullich (2-for-3, triple, single, one RBI, and one run scored), Noah Massey (2-for-3 walk, stolen base), Chapouris (1-for-3 three stolen bases, one walk, two runs scored), and Zuidema (1-for-3 two stolen bases, HBP, run, RBI).
Wood (1-1) scored a run in the first and then again in the sixth.
Getting the win was Dylan Newman. The senior worked six innings and threw 72 pitches. The right-hander also struck out four and walked just one while allowing two runs – one of which was earned.
“They were just the team that put the ball in play and the defense worked,” Newman said of his start. They had lots of ground balls, but Connor and Elliot and Cameron and I just made plays.”
Matullich also worked the final inning, where he didn’t give up a hit.
Napa will be back in action on Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 pm when they head to Antioch to play Deer Valley.
