UCLA’s Keck’s link to Giants’ Crawford
Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford sent a congratulatory tweet to UCLA third baseman Chris Keck in March for being named the Pac- 12 Player of the Week.
Keck went 5- for- 10 with nine RBIs that week, leading the Bruins to a 4- 0 record.
As a UCLA alum and infielder, Crawford, a 2006 freshman All- American, had an obvious connection to Keck. The two also share the same hometown: Pleasanton.
Keck, a 6- foot- 2, 188- pound senior, was the East Bay Athletic League Triple Crown winner and MVP as a junior in 2010 at Amador Valley, the rival of Foothill, which Crawford attended.
Crawford tagged his tweet “#PTown.”
Keck is third on the team in hitting (. 317) and is one of four Bruins to start all 45 games ( 34 of which they’ve won). He has 53 hits ( tied for third on team) and 35 RBIs ( second) for the nation’s second- ranked team, according to Baseball America.
Keck is one of four Bruins with Bay Area connections. The others are outfielders Christoph Bono ( Palo Alto), a junior, and sophomores Kort Peterson ( St. Francis) and Brett Stephens ( Campolindo- Moraga).
Bono is hitting .240 with 27 RBIs. Peterson (. 266) leads the team with 10 stolen bases in 10 attempts. Stephens is hitting .298 with an on- base percentage of .418 and is second on the team with nine stolen bases in 11 attempts.
Bono, the son of former 49ers quarterback Steve Bono, and Stephens were high school quarterbacks who led their teams to state title games. Palo Alto won the Division I State Bowl Game in 2010. Campolindo lost in the Division III State Bowl finals in 2011.
Bono and Keck helped UCLA to a national title in 2013, but last season the team struggled and failed to make the postseason for the first time since 2009.
Gaucho connection: UC Santa Barbara ( 34- 10- 1), Baseball America’s No. 11 team, completed a three- game sweep of UC Davis on Sunday when sophomore Paddy O’Brien ( Miramonte-Orinda) had a 13th- inning, pinch- hit, walk- off single, making a winner of freshman lefty Kyle Nelson ( Galileo).
Nelson, a 2013 first- team All- Metro quarterback, pitched five hitless innings to improve to 3- 1. He has 25 strikeouts in 27 innings. O’Brien has made the most of his 31 at- bats with 16 hits (. 516), three doubles, two homers and 12 RBIs.
There are four other local contributors for the Gauchos: Domenic Mazza ( Clayton Valley- Concord), who has a 5- 1 record, 2.34 ERA and 62 strikeouts in 65 innings, and closer James Carter ( San Ramon Valley- Danville), who hasn’t allowed a run in 92⁄ innings. 3
Infielder J. D. Hearn ( Westmont-Campbell) and outfielder Scott Quinlan ( San Ramon Valley) have come off the bench. Junior pitcher Trevor Bettencourt ( St. Francis) has to sit out this season after transferring from Tennessee.
Briefly: Oregon’s Nate Moore has the nation’s No. 1 triple jump ( 51 feet, 9 inches) and No. 2 long jump ( 25- 2) among freshmen. Moore was a four- time state champion at Castro Valley. … The top freshman long jumper is Cal’s Walter Jones at 25- 4 ½ . … Freshman utility player Kylee Perez ( Alhambra- Martinez, .331) and freshman pitcher Johanna Grauer ( 10- 1, 3.10 ERA) lead UCLA’s seventh- ranked softball team ( 44- 8).