It was an active day on Bonita High School’s practice field with dozens of students playing soccer, field hockey, and football. Just past this field, the CPCL’s Bucs and Pirates met to play a Wednesday game at Bonita’s baseball stadium.
Both teams have gotten off to a slow start to their seasons and will need to turn things around quickly to qualify for the CPCL playoffs, which take place in just over a month.
The first four innings of the game flew by. Pirates pitcher Noe Novella was excellent, allowing only three baserunners in his four-inning outing.
Novella had a hiccup in the third, allowing the Bucs to score one, but it was largely because of bad luck as a ground ball hit the lip of the infield causing the routine out to bounce high over the shortstop’s head.
Pirates pitching got into trouble early in the fifth, giving up three runs due to a myriad of walks, hit batters, and passed balls until Evan Evita came in to clean things up. Evita cooled off the Bucs’ momentum by throwing 2.2 scoreless innings.
After being shut out through five, the Pirates finally got on the board with a two-RBI line drive home run to left from shortstop Isaiah Walz. The home run was the first for Walz and the first for the Pirates this summer.
The Pirates were able to get a lot of traffic during the seventh but were unable to cash anything in after some untimely baserunning mistakes and failure to execute at the plate.
The Bucs added two insurance runs in the eighth inning to extend their lead to 6-2 heading into the ninth. The Pirates’ defense has been good throughout the summer, but an error early in the inning gave the Bucs extra life and caused both runs to be scored as unearned.
Despite the four-run deficit, the Pirates showed a lot of fight in the ninth. A full-count walk and a hard single into left field gave some hope for a Pirates comeback.
With two runners on and the tying runner on deck, Steven Mara made a massive dent in the Bucs’ lead by mauling a three-run home run far past the left-field fence.
The blast was not only Mara’s first home run this season but also his first hit this season. The slow start was tough to deal with for Mara since he has not had many live at-bats in the past few months due to injury.
Finally getting a hit, and it being a clutch home run was a great moment and a great relief for Mara.
“It felt like a bit of a relief,” said Mara. “[It was a} weight lifted off my shoulders and gives me something to work off of for upcoming at-bats.”
The Pirates were able to get the tying run on first with two outs, but catcher Alex Cummings cut the runner down trying to steal second, ending the game with a final score of 6-5.
The Pirates are now 1-6 on the year, while the Bucs improved to 3-5-1.
The Pirates will play again on Thursday, this time against the Legends at Cal Poly Pomona’s Scolinos Field. The Bucs will have the day off before also going to Scolinos Field to match up with the Pirates for the second time this week.
Inland Valley Baseball Association 