South San Francisco seizes lead in bottom of sixth to beat NVBC 17U, in opener of 4th of July Tournament
By Kyle Foster
Follow on Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Yountville-When you’re playing up in competition, not making mistakes is crucial.
In Thursday’s opening game of the Bill Buckner Memorial 4th of July Invitational, the South San Francisco Trojans beat the Napa Valley Baseball Club 17U, 6-1, at Cleve Borman Field.
With the win, South San Francisco has a firm grip on the pool 1 lead having beaten the Community Projects of Napa Crushers 7-4 in the first game of the day.
The Trojans opened up the scoring in the first when Nick Jang tripled and came into score on a sacrifice fly to left field by Vinny Smith.
South San Francisco put the game away with a five-run bottom of the sixth to seal the game. It all began when Evan Viana and Caleb Oliver walked before Hugo Guzman reached on a bunt single to load the bases. Two runs came in when Candy Mack reached on a fielder’s choice to bring in Viana and the overthrow to the plate allowed Oliver to score, with each runner moving up a base. A single by Michael McCauley brought in Lucci Cano who courtesy ran for Guzman. After reaching on a walk earlier, Nick Jang later scored on an error. McCauley scored the last run on an infield single by Viana.
Napa Valley Baseball Club (13-6) scored its lone run to tie the game in the third when Cameron Beeker was hit by a pitch and got to second on a Tommy Malloy groundout. Beeker then scored when Riley Marek singled.
“We missed a couple (of) signs there,” NVBC 17U head coach Gary Newman said of the hard time his team had scoring. “We missed a couple of signs, trying to move runners into spots where we could get them in, and we, we get thrown out, because we can’t get a bunt down or whatever it is. So, it’s just the small things with baseball.”
In the game, NVBC could only get five hits. But the bigger problem was that the runners they’d get on were thrown out on the bases trying to steal.
Leading the NVBC hitting attack in the game were Marek (2-for-3 RBI), Collin Taylor (1-for-3 double), Malloy (1-for-3 stolen base), and Diego Hernandez (1-for-2).
Getting the win on the hill for South San Francisco was Hugo Guzman. The right-hander was solid as he worked 6 innings, struck out 9, and allowed an earned run. He did all of this in 87 pitches.
Taking a tough loss in the pitchers’ duel was Mason Rosalski. The right-hander worked 5 innings where he was tagged with 3 earned runs. He walked 5 and struck out 4 in 94 pitches. But the bigger deal was that this was a big step from where he was at in the high school season. He went toe-to-toe with Guzman for the first five innings and didn’t get much run support.
“He’s grown a lot,” Newman explained. “He’s commanding the zone. He tries to get ahead in the counts and stay ahead. And he pitched a hell of a game, good enough for us to be in this ballgame.”
The NVBC 17U will be back in action on Friday at 4:45 pm when they face the San Francisco Cardinals. At this point in the event, it looks as if they will be fighting for the second spot in their pool.
In pool 2 games later in the day, the San Francisco Senators beat American Canyon Mallards 17U 4-1 and the NVBC 19U team beat the SF Senators 15-1 in five innings. As of now, the NVBC 19U is in a good spot after the first day.
Games will begin at 9 am and end with a 4:45 pm contest at Borman Field. It will be the second day of pool play.
There is a snack bar available and the speed limit is 15 mph. Admission to get in is $5.
