Dons top King's Academy in Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division baseball opener

But neither TKA manager Greg Muggs or his Aragon counterpart Lenny Souza had the luxury of playing through the growing pains of a non-league game because this was the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division opener for both teams.

Because of conflicting spring breaks, both teams were forced to begin Bay play two weeks before the rest of the PAL enters begins league games.

“[The game] looked like a beginning-of-the-year game,” said Souza, whose team improved to 3-1 overall and 1-0 in league play.

“It’s not fun playing league games this early,” Souza continued. “We’re still trying to figure out who we are. … It sucks playing the fourth game of the season like the seventh game of the World Series.”

Despite managing only five hits against a pair of TKA pitchers, the Dons took advantage of the base runners they did get. Aragon worked six walks and had four others reach on errors.

And when the Dons did get on base, they were running, stealing nine bases to get into scoring position and then taking advantage by putting the ball in play.

“We figured out early we could run,” Souza said. “We created our own luck. We played aggressively and it helped.”

After loading the bases but coming up empty in the bottom of the first, Aragon got on the scoreboard first by scratching out a run in the second inning. Ronin Lee started the inning by drawing a walk on a full count. He would steal second and go to third on a wild pitch, scoring on a balk during Ryan Fernandez’s at-bat. Fernandez would eventually reach on an infield hit to put runners on the corners, but a strikeout ended the inning.

TKA (1-4-1) responded with four runs in the top of the third inning. Aragon starter Ashton Moniz-Witten, who cruised through the first two innings, ran into trouble in the third as the Knights sent eight batters to the plate. Aiden Rhee started the rally by getting hit by a pitch and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. Trevor Burgett then reached on an error to put runners on first and second and Trevor Polk’s RBI single to shallow center tied the game at 1. Jaden Arad came up and stroked a two-run double and Jason Kapi singled to cap the uprising, giving the Knights a 4-1 advantage.

It was short-lived, however, as the Dons came back with four runs on their own in the bottom of the frame. Aragon managed only three hits in the inning, but the Dons drew two walks, had two more runners reach on errors, stole four bases and took advantage of a second TKA balk. The Dons pulled off a delayed double steal, with Colin Trizuto, who had doubled earlier in the inning, scoring on the back end. Lee and Schuyler Ng each drove in runs with singles while Noah Frandsen also ended up scoring, pushing the Dons back on top, 5-4.

From there, Moniz-Witten and Trizuto carried Aragon home. Moniz-Witten — who battled through five innings, allowing eight hits but striking out six — came out in the fourth and extinguished a TKA rally that saw Knights on second and third with two outs. He got out of the inning with a strikeout.

“Ashton did a great job without his best stuff,” Souza said.

Trizuto came on to pitch the sixth, striking out the side. In the top of the seventh, he hit a batter on an 0-2 count with one out, but induced the next batter into a game-ending double play, with an assist from the home plate umpire, who called the runner out at first after the runner at second barreled into Aragon second baseman Addison Yeh, drawing runner’s interference and ending the game.

Despite the ugliness of the game, Souza was glad to come away with the victory.

“A win’s a win,” Souza said. “It just feels super weird to be playing a league game this early.”