Daily Journal Athletes of the Week: Sequoia’s Mario Fausto and Morgan Winfield

Mario Fausto and Morgan Winfield have earned Daily Journal Athletes of the Week honors after powering what is likely a once-in-a-lifetime comeback. Not only did the two seniors go yard, they both did so in grand fashion, as they connected for grand slams in back-to-back innings to deliver the win for Sequoia.

“I think it’s the most exciting game I’ve ever played in,” Fausto said.

Trailing 6-2 and down to their last out in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Ravens got a jolt from Fausto. Stepping to the plate with a walk and two strikeouts on the day, the senior hadn’t touched the ball in his three previous plate appearances.

In the dugout, Winfield had his doubts the game would last much longer as Fausto held patient with the bases loaded, taking ball one, then ball two.

“I kind of thought that was going to be it because Mario was like 0 for — but I went crazy,” Winfield said.

For Ravens manager Mike Doyle, however, Fausto was his ace in the hole. As Sequoia’s No. 5 hitter, Fausto hits in back of cleanup batter Nolan Fausto, his twin brother. Nolan had just struck out for the second out of the inning, leaving it all up to Mario Fausto to extend the game.

“You can’t take two Faustos down in the same inning,” Doyle said.

Winfield went crazy when Fausto connected with a 2-0 fastball and lined it over the fence in left field to tie the game 6-all. Fausto wasn’t thinking home run. How could he be? He had hit just one previous homer in his varsity career, last season at the tail end of a 14-2 blowout at Capuchino.

“I was just trying to keep it simple,” Fausto said. “I knew what I was going to get. ... I knew he was going to come right at me.”

After a lot of hugs and slaps on the head as he crossed home plate, Fausto had to go back to work, as the right-hander was in the midst of the longest pitching outing of his varsity career. Even when he walked off the mound in the top of the seventh after four innings of relief work, Fausto had already eclipsed his career-high innings pitched.

Fausto finished the eighth, topping out at a career-best 87 pitches, but surrendered a run on an RBI single from David Medina. The Ravens went into the bottom of the eighth facing yet another deficit. And this time, it wasn’t his brother — who had started the game, and was on the hook until the grace of the seventh-inning grand slam — but Mario Fausto who was on the hook for the potential loss.

The Ravens have been hitting the heck out of the ball, though, and the bottom of the order set the plate quickly in the eighth when sophomore Oliver Connelly led off with a single. Issac Nayfack followed with a single, and Blake Whitaker promptly bunted the runners to second and third. With Winfield in the hole, Santa Teresa made the tactical decision to load the bases by intentionally walking Garrett Johnson.

Sequoia tied the game when Hymer followed with a grounder to the drawn-in infield. Santa Teresa went home with the throw, but it pulled the catcher off the plate as Connelly slid in safely to tie it 7-all — bringing Winfield to the plate, a slugger who had never had a walk-off hit, let alone a walk-off home run, in his life.

“That’s probably because [he’s] intentionally walked,” Doyle said.

With nowhere to put Winfield — an NCAA Division I commit to St. Mary’s College — the 6-2, 245-pound right-handed slugger connected with a 1-0 pitch to send a booming shot to left-center field for Sequoia’s second grand slam in as many innings, this time in walk-off fashion.

“It was awesome,” Winfield said. “I threw my helmet pretty high in the air. It was pretty sick.”

The grand salami capped a grand week for Winfield, who last Tuesday earned his first pitching win of the season with five shutout innings, allowing just two hits and striking out nine, in Sequoia’s 8-0 win at Aragon. And thanks to his grand slam, Mario Fausto earned his second win of the year to improve to 2-0.

The two are now set to lead the starting rotation into Sequoia’s PAL Bay Division slate. Fausto is scheduled to take the ball when the Ravens open league play Wednesday at the King’s Academy. Winfield is Sequoia’s scheduled starter when the Ravens return home Friday against TKA.

And the Ravens will be riding high off their most emotional win to date — heck, probably ever.

“I think it brings the team closer together,” Winfield said. “Because we had to get through seven innings of not really good baseball. ... So, it gives us confidence that we can win against any team.”