SALINAS VALLEY — Season two of the high school sports season placed the baseball teams at King City and Soledad high schools in the same division with former Mission Trail Athletic League rivals Carmel, Pacific Grove and Palma.
Last week the two Peninsula teams, Carmel and Pacific Grove, pulled out wins over the South Monterey County teams.
On April 24 at Carmel, the Padres doubled up the score, defeating the visiting Mustangs by a 6-3 score. The game was the first game of the season for King City.
“Just awesome to be able to play a baseball game for the first time in 390 days,” said King City head coach Lorenzo Espino. “We had smiles on our faces the entire time. I was impressed with how we played with four days of practice, since all the varsity team was playing football. We started sophomore Bryce Blair at pitcher and he did great as he went three innings and struck out four.”
Eli Clavijo and Rylan Hindersheid had two hits apiece against the Padres, and the Mustangs had just one error in the contest.
“It took a few innings before we got our bats started,” Espino said. “But we scored a few runs late. Overall I was happy with how the day went.”
In the JV contest, the Broncos gave up the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning. The King City JV team is coached by Jake Stephens.
The Soledad Aztecs dropped a pair of one-run games to the Breakers, losing 8-7 at home on April 21 and 4-3 on the road last Friday at Pacific Grove. The April 23 game was a real heartbreaker, as the Aztecs led 3-0 going into the seventh inning and lost on a walk-off base hit.
In games this week, King City played at Greenfield on Thursday in the league opener for the Bruins. A game that was scheduled with Gonzales will be rescheduled, as there was a lack of baseball officials this week.
Soledad hosted the Monterey Toreadores on Wednesday and will play Monterey on Friday at Sollecito Park.
