Menlo-Atherton baseball impressive in win over San Mateo

“It was a good way to start off league,” said M-A starter Griff Williams.

Williams, a junior righty, was stellar against the Bearcats. He tossed a complete game on just 88 pitches, striking out 11 without a walk and scattering four hits.

“[I] just stayed with my fastball mostly,” Williams said. “And getting ahead early in the count (was also key).”

Williams struck out the first four batters he faced and closed the game by striking out four of the last eight batters he faced.

But it was his ability to throw strikes that made Williams’ outing special. Of Williams’ 88 pitches, 65 were strikes. He threw first-pitch strikes to 13 batters and had 0-2 counts on 10 would-be hitters.

“He’s a strike thrower,” said M-A manager David Trujillo. “The goal was to pound the zone. Force contact.”

Meanwhile, the M-A offense scored at least one run in five of the seven innings. The Bears scored single runs in the first and third inning, gave themselves some breathing room with a two-run fourth and iced the game with a combined three runs in the fifth and sixth innings.

The Bears finished the game with 13 hits, led by catcher John Quinlan, who went 4 for 4 with three runs scored and a RBI from the No. 2 hole. Tommy Eisenstat, batting behind Quinlan in the No. 3 position, was 3 for 4.

Williams provided the bulk of the offense for the Bears, going 1 for 2 with a sacrifice fly and three RBIs, while Will Cronin also had two hits, including a double.

“[Quinlin is] super dependable,” Williams said. “He’s always getting on base.”

Trujillo said the team’s five games against West Catholic Athletic League schools certainly helped his hitters. Facing some of the best pitching Northern California has to offer, the Bears went 2-3 against WCAL schools, beating Bellarmine and St. Francis.

“You have to grind at-bats,” Trujillo said. “No matter who we’re playing, our goal is to be aggressive (at the plate). I want them hunting the fastball early.”

San Mateo manager Neal Goldstein was disappointed with his team’s performance. He wanted the Bearcats to be more aggressive at the plate and instead looked at too many pitches. Of their 11 punchouts, six were looking.

“Not going to win too many games with no runs,” Goldstein said. “We didn’t take the bat off our shoulders. [Williams] threw a hell of a game, but we were flat and you can’t be flat in the league opener.”

Putting even a little bit of pressure on Williams early could have made the difference for San Mateo because Bearcats starter Jack Gispan, despite wobbling through four innings, did enough to keep his team in the game. He loaded the bases with one out in the top of the first, but did a good job in limiting M-A to just one run when Quinlan scored on a wild pitch.

Gispan walked Cronin to start the second before getting a pair of strikeouts. Quinlan was up 3-0 in his next at-bat, but San Mateo catcher Chad Hawkins cut down Cronin trying to steal third to end the inning.

M-A increased its lead to 2-0 in the third inning. Quinlan and Eisenstat each reached on infield hits. After moving to third on a wild pitch, Quinlan came home on Williams’ sac fly to center.

In the fourth, M-A tacked on two more runs on a Quinlan RBI while Jackson Vontz scored on an error.

Facing San Mateo reliever Edward Huang, Cronin stroked an RBI double in the fifth to drive in the Bears’ fifth run and, in the sixth, Williams’ bases-loaded, two-run single was the big hit.

“We finally swung the bats a little bit,” Trujillo said.

Williams, meanwhile, retired the first nine Bearcats batters, but Kevin Sanchez broke up the perfecto with a solid single to left field. Williams went on to retire the next three batters.

Huang reached on an error in the fifth and Luke Barrientos had the first of his two hits on the day. Hawkins had the Bearcats’ fourth hit, picking up a single in the bottom of the seventh.

“We’re just not scoring runs,” Goldstein said. “That’s been our problem all year.”