Prep Baseball: San Marcos Defeats Rio Mesa 4-1 on Senior Day
Santa Barbara High Baseball Clinches Channel League Title
Erik Perez delivered a lights out performance on the mound on his senior day and the San Marco High baseball team closed the regular season with a 4-1 victory over Rio Mesa on Thursday afternoon.
“Really we don’t have a plan necessarily behind him. He’s just the dude.and he’s fulfilled that role the whole year,” said San Marcos coach Wes Ghan-Gibson. “He’s been doubted for his whole career here and he just has gotten it done every time he’s been up there.”
The Royals came into the day with an opportunity to win the Channel League title a win and a Santa Barbara loss, but the Dons staged a seventh inning rally and the Royals had to settle for second place.
Sophomore Landon Johnson was a standout at the plate, driving in all four San Marcos runs. His single up the middle in the first inning scored Perez to give the Royals a 1-0 lead. Johnson followed with a three-run homer in the bottom of the third inning that increased the San Marcos lead to 4-0.
“Those two sophomores are in the cage every night until nine o’clock. I don’t get the seel or the rest that I should be getting. I think the work kind of came through today. At some point when you work really hard something good is going to happen,” said Ghan-Gibson of Johnson and fellow sophomore Mason Crang. “Both of those guys grind, especially Landon in the sense that he’s been doing his best to do what he can for the team and he holds a lot on his shoulders.”
Perez walked the first two batters in the top of the seventh inning and was replaced by Crang, who surrendered a two-out RBI single, before closing out the game by inducing a groundout to second base.
The Royals will now advance to the CIF-SS Division 2 playoffs.
Santa Barbara, 4; Ventura 3
The Dons came through in the clutch to clinch the Channel League title with a 4-3 victory at Ventura on Thursday afternoon.
Santa Barbara trailed 3-2 going into the top of the seventh inning, but Zeke Adderley belted a solo home run to tie the game at 3-3.The next batter, Jetner Welch, singled, stole second base and scored the go-ahead run on a single to center field by Liam Keithley.
Santa Barbara finished the regular season with an 18-6 overall record and will advance to the CIF-SS Division 3 playoffs.
Dos Pueblos, 12; Buena, 5
Jesse Dimaggio hit for the cycle and Dos Pueblos notched a resounding win on senior day.
The Chargers end the regular season with a 15-12-1 record overall.