Yuba City comes up a run short in semis

SACRAMENTO – Down a game in their best-of-three Sac-Joaquin Section semifinal series with Oakdale High, the Yuba City Honkers tried their best to do whatever they had to do to advance on Wednesday.

They used up the arm of Anthony Piegaro, their best pitcher, to win Wednesday’s early game at McAuliffe Ballpark and even the series. Then they used a Matt Clayton home run – the Honkers’ third long ball of the day – to take an early three-run lead in the winner-goes-titlehunting finale.

But as the temperature cooled off in the evening, so too did the Yuba City bats. Oakdale didn’t exactly set the house afire offensively either, but it did just enough to eek out a 4-3 decision and end the Honkers’ season.

With runners on second and third and one out in the bottom of the seventh, the Mustangs’ Michael Juarez hit a two-hopper to the left side of the Honkers’ drawnin infield. Shortstop Anthony Hernandez fielded it cleanly and quickly threw to catcher Hayden Reyna, but it was not in time to catch Blake Maddock, who slid safely across home plate without a tag.

“I had the ball and when I went to transfer it, (Maddock) was about right there,” Hernandez said, pointing to a spot on the basepath near home plate.

“I think he just beat it. Just one of those plays, you know what I mean? You do what you can to make the play and if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen.”

So while the Honkers (21-10) won Wednesday’s early game 4-1 and led the finale 3-0 through 3 ⁄ innings, there will be no seventh trip to a section championship game for them. Instead, Oakdale (25-6) will take on Christian Brothers (28-2), which eliminated defending champion Manteca on Wednesday.

Yuba City has won in all six of its title- round appearances, most recently in 2015 against River Valley. Because of that championship success, it can be hard to view a Honkers season which doesn’t end with them holding a blue section championship banner as a success.

But considering where the 2017 Honkers came from – a 2-6 start during which a lack of hitting was an issue – to winning another Tri-County Conference championship, then losing in the section semifinals to Oakdale in walk-off fashion after hitting three home runs during the doubleheader doesn’t feel like failure.

“I’m obviously sad because we lost. It was a great season with all of these guys, I love all of these guys,” Hernandez said.

“I didn’t want to end it this early. I obviously wanted to get the ring with everybody, but I’m happy. We all played a good year, a good season. Ultimately, I’m happy because I got to play with these guys. It was a good season overall.”

Hernandez and Nick Westerband hit home runs in the bottom of the sixth inning of Wednesday’s first game to snap a 1-1 tie, but the afternoon was dominated by the pitching of Piegaro. The Honkers junior right-hander showed no ill affects from the mild shoulder discomfort he had in his team’s playoff opener against Vista del Lago last week. He allowed four hits – none after the first four innings – and struck out three, including Mad- dock swinging to end the game.

Coach Dave Rodriguez decided to go with junior Jake Harvey to start Game 2 on the mound, a somewhat bold move considering Harvey was the starter when the Honkers lost to Oakdale 11-1 in five innings in Game 1 of the series on Saturday.

But Harvey responded by no-hitting the Mustangs through three innings. Meanwhile, Clayton’s three-run homer to left in the top of the third off a curve ball from Oakdale starter Blake Whiting put Yuba City in great position.

They didn’t take the lead for granted, however.

“We had to keep going on. We had to keep putting it on them, because they’re a great hitting team,” Clayton said.

“We had to get up more out of respect for them.”

Sure enough, Oakdale used a pair run-producing doubles to tie the game 3-3 in the bottom of the fourth. In the middle of the Mustangs at-bat, Rodriguez replaced Harvey with Bryce Rogers, a hardthrowing sophomore up from Yuba City’s TCC champion junior varsity team. Rogers surrendered one of the doubles and threw a couple of wild pitches, but otherwise handled the moment well.

“We knew that they had never seen Rogers before,” Rodriguez said. “Rogers was very successful at the JV level. He’s the varsity quarterback of the football team so pressure doesn’t hurt him. He performed well.”

All of the Honkers did, really, especially when you consider they began the week with the taste of their run-rule loss to Oakdale still in their mouths and their head coach in bed with pneumonia. With Rodriguez out, assistants Matt Ricardy and Shea Davis ran the practices. The players never missed a beat.

“The program runs itself,” Rodriguez said. “These guys knew exactly what they had to do. They don’t need adults to tell them what to do every time. They came out ready and I expected them to come out ready.”

This time, in the end, being prepared wasn’t good enough.

But not being good enough this time isn’t the end.

“We have Piegaro and Harvey who are going to be seniors next year,” Rodriguez said. “And we have (sophomore Logan Meyers) and Rogers, who were at the lower level, that will be a big part of our pitching staff next year and it’s very exciting.

“Bittersweet for this, but as you look to the future, it’s very exciting.”

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