The postseason will continue for Santa Barbara High baseball, which stormed the gates against Paso Robles on Tuesday, winning 8-1 in the CIF Division 2 wild card round.
Derek True held his own in a complete game at the mound, holding Paso Robles’ batters off the mound for much of the way after ceding a first-inning run. He hit a two-run triple in the bottom of the first to get the scoring started for the Dons. Kai Uchio also hit a two-run single in the opening innning.
Besides one single, True made sure Paso Robles couldn’t get on base for the final three innings. He threw two straight one-two-three innings to close out the game.
Zach Jensens kicked a double out to left to start off the bottom of the sixth. Nick Oakley popped a hit off second base and narrowly reached first. Bryce Warrecker’s line drive scored Jensen and pinch hitter Tommy Holguin’s RBI double brought Oakley home. By the end of the inning, the Dons had tied the bow on an 8-1 win.
Coach Donny Warrecker said the field was “weird” on Tuesday, with the winds carrying the balls in odd directions. Fortunately, he said, his team’s balls went the right way. It did make things more difficult before True hit his first-inning triple.
“Derek will take it,” Warrecker said. “He didn’t have a monkey on his back, he had a gorilla on his back, game-wise.”
With the victory, Santa Barbara will now compete as a wildcard in the Division 2 main bracket. The team takes on 20th-ranked Camarillo on Thursday in a road game pitched by Jeremy Knight.
Warrecker said he was “fuming” about his team’s wild card placement, noting they were ranked higher on MaxPreps than six other baseball squads that bypassed the wild card round. Now, the Dons will have to compete twice in a week with their no. 1 pitcher sitting against Camarillo’s top pitching brass.
“It’s definitely frustrating,” True said, “but we came out here and did what we needed to do to get to the next round.”
— Noozhawk sports reporter Shomik Mukherjee can be reached at smukherjee@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @noozhawksports, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.