The Bay boys varsity baseball team partook in its own version of spring training last weekend, as the Breakers traveled up to Wine Country for non-league games against Sonoma Academy and Calistoga High School. After suffering a 5-4 defeat in its season opener on Friday night, Bay bounced back with a resounding, 14-5 victory in game two.
Jason ’14, who served as the starting pitcher versus Sonoma Academy, led the Breakers with a 4-for-4 outing at the plate against Calistoga, driving in four of Bay’s 14 runs. Meanwhile, classmate Sam ’14 shut down the Wildcats from the mound, racking up nine strikeouts over five innings of two-run work.
The Breakers enjoyed contributions from their ninth-graders throughout the weekend. In Friday’s game, Nick ’16 and Reed ’16 collected hits in their first high-school at-bats—the latter a pinch-hit single that helped to spark Bay’s comeback from an early, 4-0 hole. On Saturday, Nick ’16 moved from left field to second base and picked up his first high-school RBI on a fourth-inning single. Fellow ninth-grader Patrick broke into the hit column in the third inning of Saturday’s victory with a well-placed swinging bunt and later made his high school pitching debut, tossing the final two innings and striking out three along the way.
Co-captain Chevalo ’13 did the dirty work in Friday’s defeat, picking up Jason ’14 with 2 2/3 solid innings that kept the Breakers in the game and enabled them to tie it in the top of the sixth inning. Sam recorded the final out in the losing effort, and the starter and two relievers combined to hold the Coyotes’ last 17 batters without a hit.
Jake ’14, who saw time at first base and in center field, stole five bases in the loss to Sonoma Academy, including a delayed theft of home. Jake also made the defensive play of the weekend on Saturday. With runners at the corners for the Wildcats and nobody out in the fourth inning, Sam picked off the runner on first, catching him in a rundown; as the play unfolded, the runner on third strayed too far from the bag and Jake fired across the diamond to snipe him, thereby thwarting one of Calistoga’s most fearsome scoring threats.
The Breakers have two more non-league games on tap this week. They will take on Urban at Big Rec Field in Golden Gate Park on Wednesday (first pitch: 3:30 p.m.), before a date with familiar foe, International—which has moved from the BCL Central to the BCL West—at Moscone Field on Thursday (3:30 p.m.).
— Daniel Rathman is the quality control assistant for the Bay baseball team. He was a member of The Bay School’s first graduating class and graduated from Tufts University last May. In addition to his coaching duties, Daniel is a writer and editor for Baseball Prospectus, and a soon-to-be graduate student at New York University.
#SchoolStories 