San Marcos baseball struggled to bounce back from an early deficit and fell to Grand Terrace by a score of 8-4 in the first round of the CIF-SS Div. 4 playoffs on Thursday at Joe Mueller Field.
The Royals, under first-year head coach Richard Schroeder, finished with an overall record of 16-12 to go along with a co-Channel League title, the program’s first since 2023 and its fourth in the last six seasons.
“When I came in here, the one thing that I knew was going to be our strength was our team chemistry, and team chemistry is a force multiplier,” Schroeder said. “For them, this has been a lifelong process. When we won the Channel League, I just said to really enjoy this, because at some point going forward, baseball’s going to break your heart.
“It’s life, and it’s baseball, but they fought the whole way.”
Grand Terrace opened the game with a bang, as back-to-back two-out doubles in the top of the first gave the visitors an early 3-0 lead.
The Titans tacked on two more runs in the top of the second, loading the bases on three singles before scoring on a fielder’s choice and a San Marcos error to make it 5-0.
While the Grand Terrace offense provided cushion, Titan starter Ray Roybal kept the San Marcos bats off balance for the majority of his outing.
After a scoreless third, the Titans extended their lead to 6-0 in the fourth on a one-out RBI single. Mason Crang stranded a pair of runners after that to keep the deficit at six runs.
The Royals cracked the scoreboard for the first time in the bottom of the fourth when Landon Johnson singled home Levi Monson to make it 6-1 heading into the fifth.
Grand Terrace got that run right back in the top of the fifth on an RBI sacrifice fly to bring the lead back to six runs at 7-1.
The Royals had a chance to crawl back into the game, as they have done all season long, when they loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the fifth. However, Roybal punched out two straight batters to escape the jam unharmed.
“I’ll go back to a Catfish Hunter quote: ‘The sun doesn’t shine on the same dog’s butt every day,’” Schoreder said of the comeback falling short.
“And that’s true. We were set up to do the things we needed to do… This was just one of the times they didn’t.”
The consistent Titan offense went right back to work in the sixth with another run courtesy of an RBI single to make it an 8-1 game.
San Marcos never stopped fighting, as back-to-back singles by Johnson and Miles Herbert led to an RBI sacrifice fly off the bat of Grant Hoover to cut the deficit to 8-2. Herbert then tossed a scoreless top of the seventh to give his team one last shot at a comeback.
The Royals made it interesting in the bottom half as a pair of Grand Terrace errors opened the door to a potential big inning. Quinn Melton plated a run on a single and Mason Crang brought in another with a groundout to make it an 8-4 game, but the Titans buckled down and secured the victory.
“We made some mistakes, and we didn’t get it done today,” Schroeder said. “We’ve got to stand up and have the character to say we just didn’t get it done today.”
San Marcos will graduate Crang, Herbert, Hoover, Johnson and Monson from this year’s squad.