Baseball: Wingard Shuts Down Castro Valley in First-Round Cal Win

It has been a long three days for the California High baseball team.

After two days of postponements — first because of rain, then because the field hadn't recovered from the rain — the Grizzlies finally opened the North Coast Section Division I playoffs at Castro Valley on Thursday.

The wait was worth it.

Behind a strong performance from starting pitcher Chris Wingard, some timely Castro Valley errors and a clutch hit from Steven Moen, the sixth-seeded Grizzlies knocked off No. 11 Castro Valley with a 4-0 victory.

It wasn't clear sailing for Wingard in the early going. He allowed three singles in the first inning and another two in the second, but was able to keep the Trojans off the board. Freshman Blake Guardino, who made the jump from the freshman team for the final two weeks of the regular season, helped Wingard's cause by throwing out a Castro Valley runner at the plate from left field in the first inning.

"All year long we've been talking about overcoming adversity and Wingard was able to do that early in the game," Cal coach Dan Ward said. "He started to get ahead of guys later in the game and was successful."

Some sloppy play in the field by the Trojans aided Cal's three-run third.
After John Sarmenta walked, he was picked off by Castro Valley pitcher Matt Narahara, but the throw from first to second skipped into left field and Sarmenta was in scoring position. Leadoff hitter Rudy Leon grounded to short, but the throw was in the dirt and Sarmenta came in to score.

Chris Hayden singled and stole second before a two-run double by Steven Moen made the score 3-0.

Sarmenta scored on a wild pitch in the fifth to round out the scoring.

Wingard tried to finish the game, but after a walk with two outs in the seventh, Ward brought in Eric Tu to close it out. He needed just one pitch to induce a game-ending ground ball.

Cal was supposed to host the game as the higher seed, but NCS officials decided it was a safer bet to play the game at Castro Valley after Cal's field hadn't recovered on Wednesday.

"Yesterday seemed like the longest day of my life," Cal coach Dan Ward said. "We tried to get the field ready to go, but it just wasn't meant to be."

The win moves Cal to the quarterfinals, where they'll play No. 3 San Ramon Valley, a 7-0 winner against No. 14 Newark Memorial in the first round.

"This performance shows were in it to win it and that we're going to fight our way and see how far we can go," Wingard said "Our team isn't going to back down from anybody."

Evan Brisentine will start on the mound for Cal, while the Wolves will counter with Kyle Slinger. San Ramon Valley won both games between the East Bay Athletic League teams in the regular season, an 8-4 decision at San Ramon and a 7-2 game at Cal.

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Other North Coast Section baseball results

Division I

Division III

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