HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL ROUNDUP : USDHS Turns It Around at Mission Bay

USDHS might have been thinking that seven years, or just three weeks, is long enough. Either way, the Dons stormed into Mission Bay, scored seven runs in two innings and walked away with an 8-2 victory and sole possession of first in the City Western League Thursday.

Mission Bay has won the league the past seven years. The Dons were the preseason pick this year, but when the teams met at USDHS three weeks ago, Mission Bay won, 17-2.

Each entered Thursday’s game 6-1, sharing the league lead. Something had to give, and the Bucs (6-2, 10-8) did some giving. The Dons (7-1, 17-4) scored three runs in the third inning and four in the fourth.

USDHS can partly thank Mission Bay for both innings. In each, the Buccaneers elected to intentionally walk leadoff man Jeff Desjardins. Both times, junior third baseman Gavin Millay, a .369 hitter, made them pay. The cost: two extra-base hits and five runs.

With two outs and no score in the third, Mission Bay starter Tom Lafever (3-5) intentionally walked Desjardins, then walked Ryan Walker on four pitches to load the bases. Up stepped Millay, who entered the game with 16 RBI. Millay, a left-handed hitter, lined Walker’s 0-1 curve ball into left center field to clear the bases.

In the fourth, Walker followed another intentional walk to Desjardins with a run-scoring single. Millay then hit a two-run triple to the alley in right to give USDHS a 7-1 lead.

“(Lafever) made a good pitch--a curveball away--and I just went with it,” Millay said of his first hit. “The second time, I was really feeling confident. He had a bad day, but he’s a good pitcher.”

Millay, two for four, led an eight-hit attack against Lafever, who struck out five, walked five and allowed seven earned runs. Walker was two for three with two runs scored and two RBIs. Afterward, Mission Bay Coach Dennis Pugh didn’t blame himself or his team, which at one point was 1-6 but has since won nine of 11.

“I think we’re in pretty good position for the playoffs,” Pugh said. “I think we can beat anybody.”

USDHS’s Gary Remiker (5-1) labored while Mission Bay stranded four baserunners in the first three innings. Millay was called upon to get the final three outs in the seventh after Remiker had thrown 104 pitches and worked his way into a bases-loaded jam. Millay retired the side.

Remiker gave up just five hits while striking out five and walking three. Both Mission Bay runs were unearned.