BLOOMINGTON — Great minds think alike.
Bloomington baseball coach Carlos Contreras and Hemet’s Steven Brown started their aces in Friday’s CIF Southern Section Division 5 first-round game. Brian Martin (Bloomington) and Timmy La Chappa (Hemet) delivered in combining to allow just one run on six hits while striking out eight though the first four innings.
Then the offenses scored six runs in the final 2 1/2 innings. with Bloomington scoring a run in the sixth inning to prevail 4-3. The Bruins will visit second seeded Chino Hills in Tuesday’s second round.
“We did a better job of shortening up and just getting the ball in play that second time through our lineup,” Contreras said. “Give a lot of credit to Hemet. Their guy threw a really good game and offensively they didn’t back down when facing a deficit.”
Neither pitcher recorded a 1-2-3 inning until the bottom of the fourth. By that point, Bloomington led 1-0 after Nathan Martin was hit by a pitch in the third inning and later scored on an RBI single by Dylan Buzard.
Bloomington stretched that lead to 3-0 after five innings when Jesus De La Riva’s double to right field scored two valuable insurance runs.
Hemet fought back and scored three runs in the sixth to tie the game. Matthew Gregory’s singled home the first run, a throwing error brought in the second and a sacrifice fly from Don Felix leveled the score.
Andrew Martin struck out Akoni Johnson to keep the game tied.
“Both guys are aces of their staffs and I expect nothing less,” Brown said. “Because of how much traffic he had to work around today I wasn’t sure how far Timmy could go. At one point I actually had somebody warming up to get him but he just found a way to keep himself in that game.”
La Chappa got two outs in the sixth before giving way to Andrew Ponce after a four-pitch walk. Ponce then walked his first batter before David Trujillo singled. Trujillo advanced to second on an attempted throw out of Jordan Frogge at third base that the home plate umpire ruled was not in time, and then he scored a batter later on a wild pitch to put Bloomington ahead one final time.
Andrew Martin retired the side on a groundout and two strikeouts to end the game. He allowed three runs on seven hits, struck out seven and walked to two in the complete game victory. At the plate, he was 2 for 2 with a walk.
“Last year I got put into a lot of situations with runners on base and I feel like I benefited from that experience today,” Andrew said.
La Chappa went 5 2/3 innings and allowed four runs on four hits while striking out four and walking six in the loss. Gregory was 2 for 3 at the plate with an RBI to lead Hemet.
