Baseball team wins league playoffs, crowned as league co-champs with Palo Alto

 

The Falcons ousted the Wilcox Chargers 6-1 to win the De Anza League Championship on May, 10. 

For the Falcons, it truly was a season of firsts.

The program won the De Anza League Championship for the first time. The De Anza League is one of considered by scouts as one of the toughest public school leagues in California. It was also the first time that Saratoga had swept Palo Alto in a series. 

On May 7, the Falcons lost the first game of the three-game series to Wilcox 2-1 on a walk-off hit. Senior pitcher Kyle Dozier threw well, but the offense was unable to score runs. 

In the bottom of the seventh, with runners on second and third, the Wilcox designated hitter sneaked a single past the infield to win the game.

“That game left a really bad taste in our mouth,” said senior captain Stevie Berman. “We wanted to come back on Thursday and make a statement.” 

On May 9, the Falcons led the Chargers 1-0 behind the dominant pitching of Joey Medeiros until the sixth. In the sixth inning, the Chargers scored 5 runs before the Falcons stopped the bleeding.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, the Falcons were able to score two runs, decreasing the Wilcox lead to only two runs. After Berman went out to throw a scoreless seventh inning, the Falcons had three outs to score three runs, and that’s exactly what they did. 

The inning started with senior Stephen Ruff beating out a ground ball to shortstop. After, Medeiros and junior Eric Ferguson reached base, junior Jacob Marr hit a single that brought the Falcons within one run of tying the game. Senior captain Trevor Hanks was hit by a pitch, forcing the tying run home. 

With no outs and the bases loaded, junior Derek Sun walked up to the plate. On the ensuing pitch, he laid down a suicide squeeze bunt, bringing Marr home and winning the game.

“That day was magical,” Berman said. “Comebacks like that don’t happen every day. After that, our team felt pretty good going into Friday.” 

On April 30 and May 2, the Falcons beat the Palo Alto Vikings by a score of 4-3 in both instances. Both Medeiros and Dozier had strong showings while Berman closed out both games.

“One of our season goals this year was to sweep Paly,” Dozier said. “It feels good to be the first Saratoga team to do it.” 

The Falcons are the No. 3 seed in CCS and will square off at home against the No. 14 seed St. Ignatius on May 16.