Reign ends for Flintridge Prep baseball
NEWPORT COAST — A year ago right around this time, it was the Flintridge Prep baseball team making history.
The Rebels won five straight postseason games, advanced to the program’s second-ever CIF Southern Section championship contest and captured the program’s first Division VI title in 2015.
Fast forward 12 months and the Rebels had extended their streak of postseason victories to eight games heading into Tuesday afternoon’s Division VI semifinal versus top-seeded host Sage Hill.
While the Rebels took an early lead, they found themselves unable to stop a long winning streak and a drive to a first-ever championship appearance.
The fourth-seeded Rebels surrendered four unanswered runs and had 13 of their final 14 batters retired in a 4-1 victory for the Lightning.
The win was the 26th in a row for the Academy League-champion Lightning (27-1), which is heading to its first-ever Division VI championship game at UC Riverside on Saturday.
The defeat snapped the Rebels’ eight-game postseason winning streak and capped a 19-6 season for Flintridge Prep, the undefeated Prep League champion.
“You always hope for a comeback, but we had our chances and you can’t be disappointed,” Flintridge Prep Coach Guillermo Gonzalez said. “We can’t take anything away from Sage Hill. They’re well-coached, they played a helluva game and they made plays that we didn’t.”
While Sage Hill proved to be an opponent too tough to take down, the Rebels also didn’t help their cause with three errors, five walks and some quiet bats down the stretch.
The Rebels collected four hits off Lightning freshman starting pitcher Ashwin Chona, who allowed one run, fanned six and only walked one in five innings.
Flintridge Prep trailed, 2-1, in the top of third, but placed runners on the corners with two outs.
Chona escaped by inducing a harmless groundout to second base to preserve his lead.
The out started a streak of seven straight retired batters when Chona was pulled for Brett Super before the top of the sixth. Super had thrown a no-hitter in the quarterfinals in a 2-0 win over Santa Paula.
Super sat down the Rebels in order in the sixth and extended the streak to 12 batters before he plunked sophomore Aidan Schraeder with two outs in the seventh inning and the Lightning leading, 4-1.
Super responded to his only adversity in a two-inning save by coaxing a flyout to left to end the game.
“He’s a stud and he just defeated the defending champs,” said Sage Hill Coach Dominic Campeau of Chona. “He’s incredible and then we have Super. Super has been our guy and he’s incredible and he’s been just as dominant the entire season. It’s a great one-two punch.”
Flintridge Prep delivered the first run in Tuesday’s contest when Andrew Tsangeos led off with a single, was sacrificed to second and scored on a two-out bleeder to left field by Schraeder in the second to put the Rebels up, 1-0.
The run was the first scored against Sage Hill this postseason and, subsequently, marked the first time the Lighting had trailed in the playoffs.
The advantage was short-lived, though, as Sage Hill responded with two runs in the bottom of the second thanks to RBI singles from Jack and Edward Pelc.
Flintridge Prep’s last real rally came in the third, while the Lightning threatened in every inning and pushed across two more runs in the fourth on a two-run double from Coltrane Tait.
Sage Hill’s rally in the second inning was aided by a walk and questionable defense, while the Lightning again took advantage of a free pass and another error in the fourth to go up, 4-1.
Another error in the sixth put runners on second and third with one out and Sage Hill would have likely added to its lead if not for a spectacular over-the-should catch by second baseman Daniel Chiarodit in short right field.
“I think you have to credit the other team,” Chiarodit said. “We didn’t play our best, but those guys played really well. We battled like we always do, but we just didn’t come through. We tip our cap and our thankful for this playoff run.”
