Late-inning blast carries Aragon baseball over Menlo-Atherton

Tuesday’s steal by MacLeod, while just as bold, merely tied the game at 1-all.

The Dons responded as Ryan Fernandez clubbed a two-run home run over the fence in the right-field corner in the top of the seventh to propel the Dons to a crucial 3-1 win over the Bears in Atherton.

“A breath of fresh air,” Fernandez said. “I think our whole team needed a boost.”

The win snapped a four-game slide and moved Aragon (5-6 PAL Bay, 15-7 overall) into an automatic Central Coast Section qualifying spot with three games left in the regular season. Two weeks ago, the Dons were 4-2 and sitting in second place in the Bay Division.

They went into Wednesday’s game 4-6 and in sixth place. The top-five teams in the Bay Division make the CCS tournament.

M-A (5-6, 10-14), on the other hand, lost its first four Bay Division games. But the Bears had been on a roll, winning five of its previous six games and moving into fifth place in the standings.

The two are now tied at 5-6 in Bay play with three games left in the regular season. Aragon closes with a two-game set with Hillsdale, while M-A has two games with division-leading Burlingame.

Basically, the playoffs have started for both the Dons and the Bears and they both played like it Wednesday as M-A starting pitcher Reno DiBono and Moniz-Witten hooked up in a classic pitcher’s duel.

DiBono didn’t give up a hit until the third inning and worked through the sixth, allowing six hits on 84 pitches.

But he made one mistake and the Dons capitalized. Aragon’s No. 3 and designated hitter Ethan Casas-Wu led off the top of the fourth. On a 1-1 offering, he sent a charge to right-center field for a solo home run and a 1-0 Aragon lead.

“DiBono has been our horse all year,” said M-A manager Dave Trujillo. “He competes. He’s been our best guy all year.”

Moniz-Witten ran into a little more trouble in his six-inning outing, but he worked his way out of it.

And his problems started right away as M-A led off the bottom of the first with back-to-back singles from Owen Keep and MacLeod.

But a sacrifice bunt and a pair of strikeouts got Moniz-Witten out of the jam. He, too, gave up six hits during his outing.

“We pitched well. Played good defense,” Trujillo said. “We left too many guys in scoring position.”

The Bears, however, finally got to Moniz-Witten in the bottom of the sixth, literally stealing the game-tying run. It started when the Dons failed to field a flare into shallow left field off the bat of MacLeod that fell between three defenders to lead off the inning.

With DiBono at the plate, MacLeod stole second before DiBono eventually drew a walk.

Moniz-Witten proceeded to strike out the next three batters — but a dropped third strike to pinch-hitter Davis Phillips enabled him to reach first when the throw from the catcher got past the first baseman to load the bases for the Bears.

During the next at-bat, MacLeod broke for the plate.

“The guy (Moniz-Witten) was super slow to the plate,” Trujillo said. “[MacLeod] is the fastest guy on the team. It’s not something I do all the time.”

As MacLeod slid safely across the plate with the tying run, Souza couldn’t believe it.

“It was, like, ‘That didn’t happen,’” Souza said. “Tip your cap. You have to be willing to take that risk.”

Moniz-Witten struck out his fourth batter of the inning to end the threat as he finished with nine strikeouts.

“He bounced back after a couple not-so-great starts,” Souza said of Moniz-Witten’s effort. “Everyone did something (to contribute to the win).”

With all the momentum in the Bears’ dugout, the Dons quickly snatched it back on Fernandez’s second career varsity home run.

But it was a newcomer who got the rally started. Sophomore shortstop Cyrus Hayden-Gephart was called up from the JV squad last week as Souza was forced to shake up his lineup.

“It’s not fun to make changes at this time of year,” Souza said.

Not surprisingly, Hayden-Gephart has struggled at the plate and was 0 for 2 with a strikeout and flyout when he led off the top of the sixth. On an 0-1 pitch, he singled to left for his first varsity hit out of the No. 8 hole.

Following a popout, Fernandez, Aragon’s best hitter who was recently moved to the top of the batting order, came up. He was 1 for 3 with a single, but in the fifth, he flew out to deep center. In the seventh, he took a 2-1 pitch from the M-A reliever and hit a high-arcing ball toward the right field corner. The only question was if the ball would stay fair — it did, giving the Dons’ a 3-1 advantage.

“I’m just glad I came through when my team needed me,” Fernandez said.

Colin Trizuto came on to get the save for Moniz-Witten, giving up one hit while striking out a pair.

“I don’t like coming here. It’s never been easy here and it couldn’t be any harder. That’s part of [M-A’s] program. They make it hard,” Souza said. “[This win] couldn’t be any bigger. … We lost a little confidence and we got it back.

“I can be excited to pick up the paper tomorrow. I haven’t read the Daily Journal in like two weeks.”