HIGH SCHOOL ROUNDUP : Grossmont Freshman Rides Out Storm, Wins

It was a section-championship rematch and a game that could affect rankings, boost or bruise a team’s pride and determine bragging rights.

The players did not want to lose at any cost. But with one week left in the season and league races yet to be settled, the coaches determined there was a cost. And neither was willing to pull out all stops.

No. 1 Grossmont prevailed, 8-6, in a game the host Foothillers (20-2-1) seemed destined to win from the very beginning when they unloaded on Buccaneer ace Manny Castillo (6-4) for three runs on four hits on the first inning.

They jumped out to a 6-2 lead after three innings, with all but one of the starting nine reaching base. But the game wound up within reach for No. 8 Mission Bay (21-8), which had the bases loaded with the potential winning run at first base when the final out was recorded.

And that’s when two coaching decisions figured in the outcome of this nonleague game.

Earlier in the day, Grossmont Coach Jeff Meredith promoted Justin Spencer, a ninth-grader, to the varsity team. In the second inning, when starter Ted Moran couldn’t throw a strike (he threw 12 consecutive balls, loading the bases on walks), Meredith said to Spencer, “pitch.”

With two runs already in and the bases loaded, the freshman was still on the mound. Meredith decided to leave him there with two outs--even after he walked John Pelligren, who represented the go-ahead run, on four pitches.

That’s when Buccaneer Coach Dennis Pugh had to make a decision. Should he re-enter third baseman Eric Serrano to bat for his fifth-inning replacement, Jesus Munoz? Last time up, Serrano banged a long single off the right-field fence. Pugh decided in favor of Munoz, a one-time starter who has been used lately as a pinch-runner.

Munoz grounded out to third to end the game. Pugh shrugged.

“We got a chance to play some good competition before the playoffs,” Pugh said. “We haven’t played that many teams this good, and when you make little mistakes you usually don’t get away with it.”

Spencer went six innings, allowing four runs (two earned) and six hits. The freshman didn’t overpower anybody and he allowed two runs (charged to Moran) in the second inning, when he inherited the bases-loaded, no-outs situation, and two more in the fourth. Meredith said he planned pull Spencer until he saw the kid retire the Buccaneers in order in the fifth and sixth.

“I had four pitchers lined up behind him,” Meredith said. “But he just got better and better and better . . . he surprised me.”

Grossmont, which clinched the Grossmont 3-A League Friday, beat Mission Bay, 3-0, to win its second consecutive 2-A title last year. They did so despite getting only three hits off Castillo, who was drilled for five runs on six hits in two innings Saturday. Foothiller players actually said they wanted “revenge” against the Bucs, the 1986 and ’88 section 2-A champs currently in second place in the City Western League.

“I think we just wanted to get revenge,” said leadoff batter Jon Heinrichs, who was four for four with a home run, a double and three RBIs. “(Castillo) shut us down.”