Glendale High baseball takes one from Flintridge Prep

GLENDALE — Daniel Choi made sure the Glendale High baseball team left with at least one victory Saturday afternoon.

The senior right-handed starter put in six strong innings of work to lead the Nitros past visiting Flintridge Prep in the second game of a doubleheader, 4-2. The teams tied, 10-10, in their first meeting after the game was called in extra innings.

“I just wanted to keep my teammates going,” Choi said, “to show that we’re in it until the very end.”

Although not overly dominant, striking out just two batters, Choi was effective and efficient, mixing his fastball and off-speed pitches. He walked just one batter, and allowed just one extra-base hit — a triple in the first inning.

By contrast, in the first game, Glendale (3-7-1) walked a total of five.

“I think, what I did well, was just hit spots,” Choi said. “Just get my pitches where my coach wanted them, where my catcher wanted them, and get outs to keep the game going for us.”

Glendale, which stumbled out of the gate and trailed 2-0 early, provided Choi with some run support in the bottom of the third inning when a single from junior second baseman Thaddeus Wilson brought in right fielder Connor Rodriguez, who led off with a single of his own. An error later that inning on a throw to first base allowed Wilson to reach home and tie the score.

In total, the Nitros tallied 11 hits over both games.

“We haven’t hit the ball really well in the last seven games, so you could say we were due,” Glendale Coach Alan Eberhart said. “We worked so hard on better approaches to hitting. I thought we played well that second game.”

In the fourth inning, Glendale jumped ahead for good when senior center fielder Sean Harris hit a dribbler up the middle to bring in Josue Aguilera, who was courtesy running for sophomore catcher Hank Drosdik. The lead ballooned in the next at-bat with shortstop Justin French scoring off a double steal.

Meanwhile, Flintridge Prep (6-3-1), which had not lost since March 14, was hampered by errors, giving up three in each game.

“That’s one thing we can’t do,” said Rebels Coach Guillermo Gonzalez. “Overall, our hitting was there, but we couldn’t capitalize when we had people on.”

That was a theme from the start. In the first inning of the second game, the Rebels posted three hits, but scored just one run and stranded two runners, including one in scoring position.

Sophomore third baseman Hamilton Evans tripled to right field and scored off a single from Cole Pilar to put the Rebels on the scoreboard. But later, with runners on first and second and just one out, the Rebels hit into back-to-back fly outs to right.

Flintridge Prep will be off for a week before resuming league play, where it’s 2-0, against Pasadena Polytechnic on April 8.

Glendale begins Pacific League play on Tuesday against Burroughs.