Crescenta Valley baseball walks off into semifinals
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GLENDALE — For 13 1/2 half innings, every stanza ended scoreless.
But then came a clutch hit from Ryan Lynch and the fleet feet of Dakota Cummins and Crescenta Valley High’s CIF Southern Section Division II quarterfinal game ended in a Falcons’ celebration.
With two away in the bottom of the seventh and zeros on the scoreboard thanks in large part to the shutout performance of Eric Ma, Lynch sent a sharp single up the middle to score Cummins from second, leading to the Falcons’ 1-0 quarterfinal win over visiting Carter on Friday night at Stengel Field.
PHOTOS: Falcons punch ticket to CIF seminfinals with walk-off victory
“Going up there, I just had a mindset of coach told me to swing 100%,” said Lynch, a junior. “So I went up there and swung 100%.”
It was a hard hit ball to center field, but Falcons third base coach Dave Mendoza didn’t hesitate to wave Cummins, who was pinch-running, around.
“I just heard coach [Phil] Torres saying, ‘You gotta get down, you gotta get down;’ that’s all I heard,” said Cummins, a junior. “I just knew I had to score and get that ‘W.’”
And Cummins scored to propel the Falcons (25-5) past Carter (20-11), the Citrus Belt League’s No. 4 team, into the semifinals for the first time since 1998, when Crescenta Valley won a CIF championship.
Crescenta Valley will take on Mission Viejo, which defeated Royal, 2-1, in nine innings, on Tuesday at a site to be determined.
“It’s great,” said Ma of moving on to the semifinals. “Our team kept battling, our team kept playing defense.
“We put up a fight and we came out victorious.”
While the histrionics of Lynch, Cummins and company put the exclamation point on the night, it was the stellar pitching of Falcons starter Eric Ma and his Carter counterpart, Ricky Hernandez, who were the story until the conclusion.
Following back-to-back complete games from Falcons No. 1 Brian Gadsby, Ma was called on for his first postseason action and delivered an all-time clutch performance.
“Eric Ma pitched really well, just kept pumping strikes,” Lynch said.
Ma went the distance on just 71 pitches, retiring the final 11 batters he faced. All told, he allowed just two hits, no walks and struck out four.
“I’ve never gotten a complete game. I just gotta credit my coaches and my defense,” Ma, a junior, said. “I was very nervous; it was my first start in the playoffs. Brian did a great job the first two games. I felt if I did a good job, we could keep it going.”
With the game still in peril, Torres had Gadsby getting ready to go in if there was an eighth inning.
“[Gadsby] said, ‘Don’t worry coach, we’re gonna score a run,’” Torres laughed. “I couldn’t ask for much more from Eric. He was great out there.”
On the flip side, Hernandez was equally efficient.
Following the last pitch to Lynch, he ended the game with 87 pitches thrown, having allowed but four hits and two walks, while striking out two.
“Their pitcher did a great job,” Torres said. “He just battled.”
The majority of the Falcons’ offense was provided by Chase Walker, who went two for two with a walk.
Crescenta Valley stranded five runners in the game, including two in the second following a two-out single by Brett Klein and a Gadsby walk and two in the fifth after a two-out Walker single and an error.
Once more with two away, Crescenta Valley made noise in the seventh. It began with Nico Arredondo getting hit by a pitch.
Cummins replaced Arredondo at first and took second on a ball-one wild pitch to Walker.
Walker was then intentionally walked to set the stage for Lynch, who cashed in the biggest victory for the Falcons this century.
With Stengel Field set to be closed off for demolition on Monday, Crescenta Valley was posed with being without a practice field and a potential host site if it won its coin flip on Saturday to host the semifinal (both Mission Viejo and CV have hosted two home games thus far). However, after Friday’s game, Crescenta Valley Principal Linda Junge spoke to the superintendent and was able to secure Stengel Field for the Falcons through Tuesday.
“I’m grateful to the superintendent for working with us and going to bat for us,” Junge said.
But whether it’s at Stengel or not, the heroics of Ma, Lynch, Cummins and the rest of the Falcons on Friday night have assured that there’s at least one more game left for Crescenta Valley.