Blue Banner Boys: St. Mary's baseball blast Rocklin to win SJS D1 Championship
SACRAMENTO — Almost every fan in green at Sacramento City College rose to their feet oozing with anticipation for St. Mary’s Tanner Grove’s next pitch.
They knew his next pitch, or the one after, would secure the No. 1 seeded Rams the Sac-Joaquin Section Division 1 baseball championship victory over No. 3 Rocklin.
“I wanted it so bad,” Grove said. “Now’s the time I’ve been thinking about since the beginning of the year and it all comes down to this. So I just needed to do what I needed to do, execute each pitch and it’ll work.”
Grove’s final pitch went to the infield for an easy out at first base sending the crowd and St. Mary’s dugout into a frenzy as they had won the SJS D1 blue banner with a 6-1 win.
St. Mary’s gets into game mode
It was a quiet start to the championship game with both teams going scoreless in the first two innings. That changed once Rocklin’s Ethan Brown came up to bat with a runner already in scoring position at second base. The junior smacked the ball deep into the outfield for an RBI double.
The Thunder took a one-run lead and for the time being the momentum. Little did they know their lead would awaken St. Mary’s monstrous sluggers.
“It seems like whenever somebody scores on us, that's when they just step it up and get into a different mode,” said Jason Lindholm, St. Mary’s baseball head coach. “They did it again tonight on the big stage and it was great.”
Grove managed to stop the bleeding early limiting Rocklin to one run in the third inning and then the Rams responded. Junior Brady Errecart kicked things off by hitting a deep double into right field catching the Thunder’s defense off guard.
His hit picked up the Rams' first two runs of the game giving them a lead to hold onto for the rest of the game. They followed that with another run thanks to sophomore Dax Hardcastle, who hit a sacrifice pop fly for an RBI putting St. Mary’s up 3-1 at the top of the fourth inning.
“Our offense has been the biggest thing this year, especially this postseason,” Grove said. “It’s like every pitcher, no matter who you throw in there we’re gonna hit. It’s just out of confidence no matter where we are in our lineup 1-9, that guy can go up and get it done.”
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'A special group'
Midway through the fourth inning, Rocklin tried to throw a different pitcher at St. Mary’s explosive offense replacing junior Daniel Panteloglow with senior Jesse Cuthill. That didn’t stop the Rams as each at-bat felt like a drawn-out chess match that ended up with the Thunder in checkmate.
One of St. Mary’s top sluggers this season, senior Michael Quedens took advantage of this with the bases loaded and no outs at the bottom of the fourth inning. The lefty hit a deep single to bring home two runners. The Rams reeled in another run thanks to a Thunder error and speedy junior Alex Escalante stealing at home.
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“This group is really special,” Quedens said. “We have a lot of talented guys. We’ve got guys at the bottom of the lineup that picked us up throughout the year especially today so it’s a great group of guys. I’ll remember these guys forever.”
With a comfortable five-run lead heading into the fifth inning, there wasn’t much the Thunder could do to get back into this game. Grove went three up and three down for the next two innings stalling out Rocklin’s offense and snatching all hope away from their fan section riddled with blue and white.
St. Mary’s and Rocklin will both advance to the 2024 CIF Regional Baseball Championships which are set to kick off on May 28.
Record reporter Shannon Belt covers sports. She can be reached at sbelt@recordnet.com or on Twitter @ShannonBelt3. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.
This article originally appeared on The Record: St. Mary's baseball capture SJS D1 Championship with win over Rocklin
