Wheatland advances to D-IV semis: Pirates host Twelve Bridges in opener of three-game series Monday
May 10—Down three runs in the home half of the sixth inning, the Wheatland Union High baseball team was down to its last six outs when it ignited a four-run rally to overtake No. 7 Liberty Ranch and stave off a second straight playoff defeat to the Galt-based squad, winning 6-5 Thursday to advance in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV playoffs.
The reward is Wheatland's first trip to the SJS semifinals where it will host No. 3 Twelve Bridges in a best-two-of-three series starting Monday at Wheatland Union High School. The Pirates (17-10) enter as the second-seed and will need two wins over the Raging Rhinos to advance to its first-ever SJS final set for May 23-26.
"They really turned it around in the sixth inning," Wheatland head coach Bradford Barton said. "They talked about it amongst themselves about having a quality approach at the plate, not giving in to the ball in the dirt and it really paid off for us."
Barton's squad epitomized its philosophy in the sixth inning when it came up with two scoring base hits — the first a shot from Leo Hoskins — one of his three extra-base hits — to center that caromed off the wall at about 385 feet on the fly to score Ty Linker when Linker crashed into the catcher at the plate to force the ball to the ground and cut the deficit to 5-3.
"It was a bang-bang play. My understanding of the rule is the catcher is supposed to give you a lane and you as a baserunner are supposed to try and avoid contact, but it was such a bang-bang play and there was nowhere for our runner to go without vacating home plate completely."
As for Hoskins, Barton knew that the junior would have a day like Thursday eventually.
"Leo has always had the capacity to hit like that," Barton said. "During the season he hasn't hit very well but we kept throwing him in the lineup because we knew it was going to show at some point."
Wheatland's Kai Hanley drove home another to cut it to 5-4, while the Pirates followed with their final two runs courtesy of Liberty Ranch wild pitches to erase the hole and grab a 6-5 lead.
Hanley closed the door in the bottom of the seventh, striking out one and walking one to complete the one-inning save.
Joshua Shackelford, a 6-foot-0 junior righty, went six strong with a game-high 10 strikeouts to keep Wheatland within reach most of the afternoon. On offense, Shackelford had two hits and scored twice — the second on a wild pitch in the sixth to tie the game at five.
Liberty Ranch struck first in the top of the second when Garrett Owen hit a solo blast to left to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead. It was one of two hits for Owen, the second coming in the fifth to put Liberty Ranch ahead 5-2.
Mario Rubalcava also had two hits for Liberty Ranch.
For Wheatland, the win moved the squad into the semifinals to take on Twelve Bridges (16-10) for a third time. Wheatland swept TB in league, 1-0 and 10-5.
Game one begins Monday at 4 p.m. in Wheatland, game two in Lincoln, while a winner-take-all third game is back in Wheatland (if necessary) Thursday at 4 p.m.
"I prefer a series, I'm old school and a series really shows who the better team is," Barton said.
In the other half of the bracket, top-seed Casa Roble begins a three-game set with No. 4 Placer Monday in Orangevale.
To purchase postseason tickets, visit https://gofan.co/app/school/CIFSJS.
