De La Salle senior celebrates in style
Perhaps the only thing better for a baseball player than hitting a first varsity home run on your birthday is making a spectacular diving play to rob an opponent of a hit.
Oh, and also delivering a runscoring single during a gritty extra-inning victory.
Have yourself a day, Taison Corio.
De La Salle-Concord’s senior second baseman did it all and was beaming after his fifthranked Spartans’ 6-2, 10-inning victory at No. 2 Foothill-Pleasanton (12-2, 4-1 East Bay Athletic League) on Friday.
“It was pretty exhilarating rounding the bases,” said Corio of his two-run blast over the fence in right field that gave the Spartans a 2-0 lead in the second inning. “I woke up today thinking it would be a great day. But this is way better than I expected.”
It wouldn’t have been so if the Spartans (10-3, 3-1) didn’t push across four runs in the 10th, keyed by run-scoring singles from Grant Daley and Corio, making it 4-2, before a two-run single from Nick Cirelli.
Junior Cole Silva surrendered a couple of singles in the bottom of the 10th, but stranded both runners to earn the victory with 52⁄3 innings of scoreless relief.
A sacrifice fly by Foothill’s Justin Lavell in the fourth and a run-scoring double by catcher Jeremy Lea in the fifth chased De La Salle starter Ryan Costeiu, who entered with a 3-0 record and 0.51 ERA.
Silva came in with the bases loaded and one out and stranded the baserunners by inducing a fielder’s choice grounder and popup.
“We were planning on starting (Silva) on Monday, but we felt this league game against one heck of an opponent was more important,” De La Salle coach David Jeans said. Silva “did a great job.”
So did the Foothill bullpen — until the 10th.
James Krell relieved starter
“I woke up today thinking it would be a great day. But this is way better than I expected.”
Taison Corio, De La Salle second baseman
Dylan Pottgieser (5-0, 1.84 before Friday) after three innings and he, sophomore Seungmin Shim and Jason Dormann held De La Salle scoreless for six innings before the Spartans, with the sun having set, finally broke through.
With one out, Chris Santiago was hit by a pitch before freshman Blake Burke’s potential double-play grounder was booted on the infield.
Daley, a sophomore, fouled off a couple of two-strike pitches before drilling a single down the left-field line for the go-ahead run. Corio followed with an RBI single up the middle and, after a walk, Cirelli drilled a two-run single to break it open.
“That was a very good high school baseball game,” Foothill coach Angelo Scavone said. “There’s a lot of dog in our fight every day. This team is full of grit. But the one miscue really hurt. We’ll be back.”
Scavone chose to keep Foothill’s regular rotation, letting Vanderbilt-bound Brett Hansen pitch Wednesday during a 2-0 win over crosstown rival Amador Valley.
Hansen, a 6-foot-4, 200-pound left-hander, is 4-0 with a 0.00 ERA. He’s struck out 33 in 17 innings.
“Yeah, it was a little tough not being out on the mound,” said Hansen, who played first base and was 2-for-4 with a walk. “But hopefully we’ll see them again and I’ll be out there. It was really a good game today except the final result.”
“We knew it was going to be a dog fight,” Corio said. “This just shows our toughness.” MaxPreps senior writer Mitch Stephens covers high school sports for The San Francisco Chronicle.