San Marcos played a competitive baseball game on Friday.
But the Royals faced the hottest team on the South Coast, and they couldn’t match the offense, defense and pitching prowess of Dos Pueblos for seven innings.
The visiting Chargers got a complete-game performance from sophomore pitcher Gabe Speier and a two-run homer from Michael Spiritosanto in an 8-1 Channel League victory at Joe Mueller Field.
It was the 12th win in a row for DP, which improves to 12-2 on the season and 2-0 in league play. San Marcos fell to 2-8, 0-4.
Unlike its previous outing against Buena (a 12-0 loss), when mistakes took it out of the game early, San Marcos hung with the Chargers, trailing by just two runs after three innings — both runs coming in the first inning.
The Royals stayed close with some good defensive plays.
Center fielder Joe Prince made a brilliant running catch on a drive by DP’s Steven Reveles in the second inning, holding onto the ball as he crashed into the fence.
In the third, third baseman Zach Colegrove chased down a fly ball in foul territory and reached over the fence to make the catch.
“We played inspired today,” San Marcos coach Tony Vanetti said. “It was good to see our guys come out and play like they really wanted to play baseball. The scoreboard didn’t go our way, but I’m happy with the way we played today.”
Dos Pueblos, meanwhile, played another solid game.
In the pitching department, Speier held the Royals to four hits and gave up the one run in the seventh inning when he started to tire. He struck out six and made two big defensive plays. In the second, he raced over and covered first base to complete a dazzling 3-6-1 double play. In the third inning, he bolted off the mound, fielded a bunt and gunned out the baserunner at first base.
“When you got pitchers contributing to the defense other than just pitching, that really helps us out as a team,” said DP coach Nate Mendoza.
Mendoza visited Speier on the mound after the lefthander walked Riley Moore and Jimmy Brakka back to back to start the seventh. An Evan Doherty ground ball up the middle loaded the bases and a run-scoring fielder’s choice on a balll hit to third base by Sean Macduffee broke up the shutout.
Speier got the second out on a ball hit back to the box and he finished the game with a strikeout.
“He’s a big-time competitor,” Mendoza said of Speier. “He’s a bulldog and wants to stay out there. I’m proud of him.”
At the offensive end, Kyle Richardson and Tony Corraza hit run-scoring singles to give the Chargers a 2-0 lead in the first inning.
They broke the game open in the fourth with four runs. Jose Diaz opened with a single, Reveles reached first on an error by the shortstop and York followed with a booming RBI double to the center field fence. Joe Huthsing hit a sacrifice fly to right to bring home Reveles for a 4-0 lead.
Spiritosanto came up and smashed a towering two-run home run over the left-center field fence.
“It was 2-and-0 and they left a pitch up, and I just threw my hands at it and it got out,” said Spiritosanto, who added a third RBI with a sacrifice fly in the sixth.
“Spirit is our spark plug, he’s been our spark plug,” Mendoza said. “Our first five hitters are scary. It’s the same five hitters. Those guys know they’re our table setters. It can be any one of those five guys. Today, it was Mikey. He carried our offense. Mikey’s keeping a hot bat. He swung a hot bat in Arizona and he’s obviously carried it on in Santa Barbara.”
And he’s carrying it with a sore hip. Mendoza has used Spiritosanto as DP’s designated hitter for the past three games to allow the hip injury to heal.
Kyle Richardson has filled in nicely for Spiritosanto at third base.
Dos Pueblos ,with the help of two errors, scored two more runs in the sixth. An error on a ball hit by York scored the seventh run and Spiritosanto’s sacrifice fly off San Marcos reliever Ghazaleh Sailors brought in the eighth run.
The Chargers were expecting to play their first games at home since the first week of March on Saturday, but their opponent, South Hills, called on Friday and said it couldn’t make the trip to Goleta.
Dos Pueblos…2000 402 0 — 8 11 1
San Marcos…000 000 1 — 1 4 2
Speier and Huthsing; Doherty, Sailors (6) and Moore. W—Speier (4-1). L—Doherty.
2B—DP: York, Huthsing, Avila. SM: Moore. HR—DP: Spiritosanto, 4th inn. one on.
