Los Medanos Mustangs falter in late-inning tragedy
Opening playoff game ends in defeat
Los Medanos Mustangs baseball player Seth Gwynn slides into second base safely to get closer to scoring for LMC.
May 7, 2023
The Los Medanos College Mustangs baseball team played their first playoff game of the season, and it ended in defeat to the Ohlone Renegades with a final score of 8-4.
The starting pitchers for the games were Colton Trudeau for the LMC Mustangs and Ethan Shaver for the Ohlone Renegades. Coming into the first game of the three-game series, Trudeau had a 2.30 ERA, while pitching 60.2 innings in the season. Ethan Shaver had a 4.18 ERA while pitching 58.2 innings in the season.
It was a close game until the eighth inning when starting pitcher Colton Trudeau of the Mustangs was taken out of the game. The game went back and forth for the first seven innings, but when the game reached the eighth inning, the Renegades took a big lead and didn’t look back.
It started slow with the first run coming in the bottom of the second on a groundout by Seth Gwynn to third base. It then went quiet until the top of the fourth inning when Ohlone’s Jadon Arakai and Stevie Hom hit singles, scoring two runs and giving the Renegades a 2-1 lead.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Mustangs regained the lead after a triple by Ryan Pierce, scoring Seth Gwynn from first base and a sacrifice fly from Bubba Rocha to the center fielder, scoring Pierce from third base.
The Renegades did tie the game up in the top of the sixth when Ethan Liao hit a solo shot to right field, keeping the game close. Then it became a pitcher’s duel until the top of the eighth inning.
In the top of the eighth inning, Trudeau got a flyout, then gave up a single to the next batter bringing his pitch total up to 106 pitches. After the single by Liao, the coach for the Mustangs took Trudeau out of the game and brought Rocco Borelli to the mound. This is where the game took a turn. Borelli immediately gave up two straight singles allowing a run to score, giving the Renegades a 4-3 lead. He did manage to get an out, but another run scored on that out and extended the Renegades lead to 5-3. He then walked the next batter and gave up another single that scored another run to give the Renegades a 6-3 lead. This is when the coach made another pitching change and brought second baseman Darrell Mays to the mound to get the Mustangs out of the inning.
Although Mays did get the Mustangs out of the eighth inning, due to a baserunning mistake by Will Linberg getting tagged out between first and second base on a rundown, two runners scored, giving the Renegades an 8-3 lead and seemingly closing out the game.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Ray Hernandez took over on the mound for Shaver and gave up a run after a single by Kris Leffle scored Michael Weber from third base. During the inning, there was an injury after the ball hit Renegade shortstop Stevie Hom on the Leffle single taking him out of the game. Binyam Gebhardt took over for Hom at shortstop for the remainder of the game.
In the bottom of the ninth inning, a comeback looked to form with two outs as Pierce hit a double and Rocha reached first after a throwing error by the second baseman. Still, the game ended after Weber popped the ball up to second right into Matt Leiterman’s glove.
The Mustangs have a chance to move onto the second round, but they’ll need to win the next two games.
