GREENFIELD — For the first time in 17 years of existence, the Greenfield High Bruin baseball team will be playing in its first Central Coast Section playoff game. Greenfield (16-10) earned a spot in the playoffs last week by splitting a pair of games with the Mission Trail Athletic League champion Pacific Grove Breakers.
“This league season we started strong and towards the end we won games that we had to win,” said Bruin head coach Ray Green. “We knew the start of the week that we would have to beat Pacific Grove at least once to have a chance to get into the playoffs. To be able to get the home win over PG meant a lot to us. The way King City, Soledad, and Carmel were playing we had to beat PG once or twice to earn a playoff spot. Our team played hard and gave themselves the opportunity we needed.”
In the first game against the Breakers on Tuesday, May 9, in Greenfield, the Bruins defeated shutout the league champions by a 9-0 score. The Bruins took a 1-0 first inning lead and padded the lead to 4-0 with a three-run bottom of the second. Tony Castro did his worked on the mound giving up seven hits, including one extra base hit but no runs. Castro finished with three strikeouts in seven innings.
Oscar Hernandez hit a triple and had two runs batted in and Ubaldo Trujillo added a double with three RBI’s. Castro contributed an RBI. The Bruins finished the game with a five-run sixth inning.
In the JV contest the Breakers defeated Greenfield by an 11-6 score. Jonathon Garcia led the Bruins with three hits and Jaime Soto had two RBI’s with a basehit. Soto took the pitching loss and finished with five strikeouts.
In the final league game at Pacific Grove the Bruins trailed 5-2 in the top of the third but the Breakers scored five runs to build the lead to 10-2. The Bruins added a run in the top of the fourth but lost 10-3 to the host team. Greenfield managed just four total hits against winning pitcher Kevahn Ebron.
The Breaker JV team edged the Bruins by a 4-3 score. Greenfield took a 1-0 lead in the top of the second and tied the game at 2-2 with a run in the top of the fifth. Pacific Grove took the lead at 3-2 but Greenfield fought back to tie the game at 3-3 in the top of the seventh.
The Breakers score the winning run in the bottom of the seventh. Jaime Soto, Agustin Pantoja, and Humberto Montoya had hits and RBI’s for Greenfield.
With a 13-5 record the Greenfield varsity finished in a four-way tie with King City, Soledad, and Carmel. Soledad made the Division I playoffs because of its total amount of points and King City was seeded into Division II.
Carmel did not make the playoffs as they did not have enough points to earn a playoff spot.
The Greenfield varsity team was seeded #13 in the CCS Division II playoffs and will play at #4 seed Terra Nova today at 4 pm. A win over Terra Nova will send the Bruins to the quarterfinals where they will play either #12 seed Mt. Pleasant of #5 seed Live Oak on Saturday. Joining Greenfield in Division II are #3 seed Pacific Grove.
“It all comes down to just playing baseball,” said Coach Green. “We will just have to play as well as we can to stay in the tournament.”
