Santa Clara Lets One Get Away as Fillmore Rallies for 5-4 Win

It seemed fitting that the winning run in Fillmore High’s 5-4 win over Frontier League rival Santa Clara on Friday scored on a passed ball.

The game, pairing the top teams in the league, was less than artistic from the outset and featured eight errors.

So why not end it with a thud?

In fact, the host Flashes accomplished their two-run seventh-inning rally with a bunt single that started foul then kicked fair, three walks, two wild pitches and a throwing error.

And then there was the passed ball. Fillmore’s Jose-Luis Lomeli charged home from third base while Brandon Mumme squared to bunt with one out. Mumme missed the pitch and watched as the ball popped out the glove of catcher Chris Macias. Lomeli scurried across the plate and Fillmore (10-1-1, 5-0-1 in league play) had staved off second-place Santa Clara (7-4, 4-2).

The teams will meet twice more before the season ends.

The rally made a winner of starter Anthony Chessani (5-0), who gamely went the distance despite six errors behind him. Well, actually four. Chessani made two himself. It was that kind of day.

Chessani had scored the tying run earlier in the seventh after he walked, went to third on Macias’ errant pickoff attempt and came across on a wild pitch by starter Will Edwards (3-1).

Talk about little ball.

“We didn’t play really good baseball,” Fillmore Coach Tom Ecklund said. “With all our errors and mental lapses? And yet we were still in the game.”

With the aid of three unearned runs, Santa Clara took a 4-1 lead heading into the bottom of the fourth, but the Saints squandered a chance to break open the game in the top half, stranding two runners.

“We should have scored more runs but we made a couple of mistakes,” Santa Clara Coach John Lorenzana said. “With a good team like Fillmore, you have to knock them out and we didn’t.”

Woozy but determined, Fillmore pieced together its rally of survival in the seventh, capped by Ecklund’s squeeze call. It looked bad when Mumme missed the pitch, but when the chest-high fastball eluded Macias, Fillmore was all smiles.

Better to be lucky than good?

“Sometimes you have to be,” Ecklund said. “We weren’t getting a whole lot of luck earlier, so we had it coming.”