The Santa Ynez Heat won the inaugural Maple Mash Baseball Tournament in Santa Maria.
The Santa Ynez Heat won four games in a row to take home the championship trophy in the 16U division at the first Maple Mash Tournament held at the Santa Maria Elks Field last weekend.
“With only a total of four runs allowed in four games, our pitching was dominant this weekend,” said Heat coach Gino Filippin. “And our pitchers were well supported by the way we swung those wood bats.”
In the opener of the wood bat tourney, the Heat downed the Santa Maria Baseball Club 8-1.
A trio of Heat hurlers — Zack Austin, Kelton Torres and Daniel McKinney — combined to shut out the SoCal Elite 8-0 in the afternoon matchup.
While the crack of the bat is a wonderful sound, the sound of a bat cracking is not-so wonderful, especially if you have pay to replace a broken one. In the first two games, the Heat broke four of its six bats and had to acquire fresh lumber for play the next day, all the while chuckling at the words on the front of the official tournament T-shirt: “Got wood?”
In a very well-pitched semifinal game on Sunday, the Heat made the most of two hits and edged the Lompoc Braves 3-2.
The Heat overwhelmed the Central Coast Giants 8-1 in the championship game. Southpaw Ryan Layton pitched five innings, thoroughly throttling the Giants and facing only 16 batters. Ozzie Medina pitched two innings, finally giving up a run after throwing 15 consecutive scoreless innings—a string that began in a previous tournament and extended through a half dozen appearances.
With those wood bats, Heat hitters didn’t show their characteristic long-ball power, but did demonstrate patience (drawing many walks), and bunched together lots of singles. Brian Kirkpatrick, Bailey Gaither, Ethan Hicks, Rubin Orozco and Bret Filippin had timely hits and were aggressive on the base paths. The Heat outscored opponents 27-4 in the tournament.
The Santa Ynez Heat’s roster features top players from all over Santa Barbara County, as well as from Atascadero and Paso Robles, and includes Kelton Torres , Brett Filippin, Rubin Orozco, Ethan Hicks, Brian Kirkpatrick, Zack Austin, Daniel McKinney, Ozzie Medina, Ryan Layton and Bailey Gaither.
