Baseball: Wolves Give Away Lead in Loss to Amador

OAKLAND -- For six innings of Saturday's East Bay Athletic League baseball game against Amador Valley at the Oakland Coliseum, San Ramon Valley was in control.

It took one bad inning to make that irrelevant.

The Dons capitalized on a pair of San Ramon mistakes to score two runs in the bottom of the seventh and escape with a 3-2 win.

"We kicked it around and gave it to them," San Ramon coach Chris deClerq said.

San Ramon took a 2-1 lead into the final inning when the team's game started to unravel. Amador's Brian Hamm drew a leadoff walk and advanced all the way to third on a sacrifice-bunt by Joe Moroney. After Chris Keck was issued an intentional walk, the Dons put on a suicide squeeze.

Tommy Pluschkell missed on the bunt attempt, leaving Hamm caught halfway down the line from third. He forced two throws in the rundown before the third was dropped and Hamm slid home to tie the game at 2-2.

Pluschkell calmly lined a single to center to score Keck from third, and the Dons completed their second comeback win against San Ramon this year.

"We had them beat," deClerq said. "Credit to them for getting it done, but I think we're much better than we played. We outplayed them for 12 of the 14 innings and they won both games."

The seventh-inning woes wasted a fantastic performance by San Ramon Valley starter John Hochstatter, who was in line for the win after allowing four hits and one run in six innings.

"He does that almost every game," deClerq said of Hochstatter. "He pitched well enough to win, it's a lot like last time. It's frustrating."

With a win, the Wolves would have controlled their own destiny as far as the EBAL title is concerned. They now find themselves two games behind Amador Valley and Foothill.

San Ramon hosts Granada on Wednesday in its final regular-season home game before finishing the week at Cal. The Wolves will go to Foothill and Monte Vista the following week.

Ben Fishman was 2 for 4 with a double and run for San Ramon.

—————————————————————

Amador Valley 3, San Ramon Valley 2

San Ramon Valley 002 000 — 2 4 2
Amador Valley 000 001 2 — 3 5 1

San Ramon Valley (ab-r-h) — Fishman 4-1-2, Cox 4-0-0, Bo.Geren 3-1-1, Massoni 1-0-0, Quinlan 1-0-0, Bedard 3-0-1, Drobny 3-0-0, Br.Geren 3-0-0, Dutto 3-0-0.
Amador Valley (ab-r-h) — Hamm 2-1-0, Moroney 2-0-0, Keck 2-1-1, Pluschkell 4-0-1, Johnson 2-1-1, Hafford 2-0-1, Olguin 2-0-1, Finn 2-0-0, Petros 3-0-0.
Pitching 
San Ramon Valley — Hochstatter 6 IP, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 H, 3 K; Popovich (L) 0.1 IP, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 H, 2 BB, 0 K.
Amador Valley — Mallory 2.2 IP, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 H, 3 BB, 2 K; Osterholt (W) 4.1 IP, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 H, 0 BB, 1 H.

Batting
2B — Fishman (SRV).

——————————————

EBAL Standings

Amador Valley 8-2

Foothill 8-2

California 6-4

San Ramon Valley 6-4

Granada 5-5

De La Salle 3-7

Livermore 2-8

Monte Vista 2-8