HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL : Silva’s Homer Carries Hilltop

Many high school baseball players dream of it.

It’s the bottom of the eighth, one out, two players on base and your team is trailing by one. You hit a home run to clinch the victory and become the hero of the game.

Jose Silva, one of the top pitching prospects in the country, played out that dream Saturday.

Silva’s three-run homer in the bottom of the eighth clinched Hilltop’s 6-5 victory over Helix in the Hilltop-Moose Tournament at Hilltop High.

“I told the team after the game that what he did was a dream,” Hilltop Coach John Baumgarten said. “This one came true today and that was neat. But in reality it doesn’t usually happened.”

In the seventh, Jesse Guzman scored off Bobby Lugo’s RBI single for Hilltop (2-0-1) to tie the score, 3-3, and send the game into extra innings.

In the top of the eighth, with two outs and bases loaded, Jesus Blanco walked Troy Baker and then walked Brad Werdick to give Helix (1-2) a 5-3 lead. Helix loaded the bases three times during that inning and Schniepp had hoped for a bigger lead.

“I thought we’d score more runs (in the eighth),” Schiepp said. “Our base running hurt us. We should have scored four or five in that inning.”

Helix took a 3-0 lead in the second inning which Helix Coach Jerry Schniepp was hoping for since he speculated that Silva pitch in the middle innings. Silva, who had pitched a complete game earlier in the week, was allowed to pitch just three innings due to a rule restricting a pitcher from throwing more than 10 innings in a week during a tournament.

Silva, who took the mound in the fourth, struck out three and walked one of his 11 batters.

“When a team has a pitcher like that you hope to have a lead when he comes in,” Schniepp said. “I think we did a good job against him.”