Vikings go down fighting
HOLTVILLE — The Holtville High baseball team was dealt a heart-breaking 8-5 10-inning loss to Castle Park on Tuesday afternoon here, ending the team’s run in the CIF-San Diego Section Div. IV playoffs.
The game went into extras after the teams played to a 2-2 tie in the regulation seven innings.
Castle Park then battled in the top of the ninth to bring across three runs to take a 5-2 advantage. The Vikings then fought to tie the game once in the bottom of the ninth after producing three runs of their own.
Unfortunately for the local team, it was unable to hold the Trojans, who went on to score three more runs in the top of the 10th inning.
The game is the second-straight extra-inning playoff game played by the Vikings, as they were coming off a 13-inning marathon match against Mar Vista on Saturday.
The No. 1 Vikings and No. 8 Trojans had previously met in the Div. IV playoffs just one week ago with the Trojans upsetting the Vikings 11-9 in that game.
Following that loss, the Vikings worked to put together a string of victories to advance to Tuesday’s game.
Holtville concludes the season with an overall record of 23-7-1 and a third-best Imperial Valley League record of 9-3.
This is the Vikings best season so far under the direction of Corey Moreno, who took the reins of the program in 2015 when the team still competed in the Manzanita League.
A year later, the Vikings were competing in the IVL. They continuously improved each season to this year when they were contenders for the IVL title.
Additionally, the squad finished runner-up at the Lions Tournament earlier this season.
The team loses just four players to graduation: Tavo Loya, Ross Bolin, Oscar Mandibles and Alex Aguirre.