Dos Pueblos baseball held Santa Barbara High to just one hit en route to a 3-0 victory and the crosstown rivalry sweep on Friday at Scott O’Leary Field.
The Charger (15-7, 7-3 Channel League) duo of Jameson Barth and Max Cruse diced up the Dons’ (9-12, 3-7 CL) offensive attack, striking out 12 batters en route to the shutout win.
Dos Pueblos is in second place in the league standings, one game behind San Marcos. Rio Mesa and Pacifica are tied for third place at 6-4, Buena is in fifth place and Santa Barbara High is in sixth.
“Coming into league play, it’s really tight. There’s not a big separation from the top and bottom,” Dos Pueblos head coach George Hedricks said. “Everybody is forcing the other teams to kind of look over their shoulder.
“It’s always nice to sweep, especially against a crosstown (rival). We got swept by San Marcos, which didn’t feel good and is a credit to them, but we don’t want to have that happen to us.”
After 5 1/2 innings of scoreless pitchers’ duel action, the DP offense caught a break to finally break through in the top of the sixth.
Stone Saunders was hit by a pitch before Evan Bean’s ground ball to shortstop took a bad hop and ricocheted off the Santa Barbara High defender to put runners on the corners and one out.
A few pitches later, the ball scooted past the catcher for a wild pitch to allow Saunders to come in and score for the 1-0 lead. Marcus Carbajal kept it rolling with a double down the left-field line to double the advantage to 2-0.
Following a strikeout, Spencer Holtz roped an RBI double into the left-center field gap to score Carbajal and make it 3-0 heading into the seventh.
Cruse then made quick work of the Dons in the seventh, striking out two in a 1-2-3 frame to finish off the win.
“I’ve been coaching here for a long time. We’ve literally hung our hat on pitching for years,” Hedricks said. “Offense has not been something we’re necessarily always known for. This year, it started off where offense was carrying us, and our pitching was kind of figuring out a little bit.
“In the last couple of weeks, it’s been the opposite. We’ve been pitching our butts off, and the offense fortunately grinded out long enough (today).”
The Dons threatened in the top of the first as a pair of walks and two stolen bases put runners on second and third with one out. However, Barth buckled down and got a strikeout and a pop-out to get out of the jam.
SB starter Emiliano Ramirez worked around some traffic of his own in the first, as he bounced back from a leadoff walk and got three straight outs to keep the scoreless tie.
Barth and Ramirez really settled in from there, exchanging 1-2-3 innings in the second and clean third innings of work while keeping both offenses out of the hit column.
The SB offense then threatened to strike again in the fourth, and once again it was without a hit. A walk, a hit batter and a balk put runners on second and third with two outs and Griffin Arnold coming to the plate.
Arnold roped a grounder into the 3-4 hole, but Carbajal at first base came up with a stellar diving play to spear the ball and dove to the bag to beat out Arnold and end the inning. The big play capped off four no-hit innings for Barth, who struck out six along the way.
“I can’t say enough good stuff about Jameson hanging zeros,” Hedricks said. “It wasn’t pretty in the first inning, but that could have gone a lot of different ways. Earlier in the year, I don’t think you would have gotten out of it, and that’s kind of the growth he’s had these last few weeks, being able to kind of slow the game back down, make the pitch.”
Bean broke up the no-hitter with a single in the bottom of the fourth, but Ramirez buckled down and got two strikeouts and a fly out to escape unscathed.
“Since probably the Anaheim tournament, every time [Ramirez] has been out there, he’s getting better and better and better. His pitches are getting sharper. He’s getting more confidence,” Schuck said.
“You take that bouncing ball away (in the sixth), and he gets into the seventh thing. What more can you ask? He is the ultimate competitor, and he competed and it showed.”
The Dons then picked up their first, and what proved to be their only, hit of the day in the top of the fifth courtesy of a single by Brandon Weaver. However, Weaver was stranded at second base as Cruse got out of the inning by calmly fielding a comeback line drive to send the game into the sixth inning.
“In practice, it’s like a bunch of animals out there swinging it and in the game time, I think it’s confidence, I think it’s trust. Trying to maybe do too much,” Shuck said of his team’s offensive struggles.
“We talk about, ‘Hey, I don’t need you to do more. I don’t need you to try harder, just be you.’ They haven’t really connected with that yet… If they could take their mentality from practice to the game, I told them before the game, ‘It’s going to be a light show tonight.’ Unfortunately, I was wrong.”
Dos Pueblos will host Righetti for a non-league game on Saturday at 11 a.m., while the Dons will host Buena on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m.