Menlo baseball goes back-to-back in CCS

This time it was senior KC Chavinson at second base who gloved the final out of No. 1-seed Menlo’s 5-4 victory over No. 2 Monterey in the CCS Division V championship game Thursday night at Excite Ballpark.

“As soon as I saw my friend KC make the last out — we’ve been playing baseball since Little League — that was so awesome seeing him catch that,” Salama said. “And being part of that was just incredible.”

Adding to the championship moment was Salama’s unlikely pitching appearance. The senior right-hander was pitching in his first game in five weeks after an elbow injury limited him to designated hitter duties, and was thrust into the biggest of spots.

“He’s been working his butt off with rehab, and getting better and getting healthy, and working super hard off the field to get himself ready to show up for his teammates,” Knights manager David Trujillo said. “And he wanted the ball.”

After Menlo (21-8) led 5-1 earlier in the game, Monterey scored once in the fifth and two more runs in the sixth to make it a one-run game. That’s when Trujillo opted to turn to Salama with the game on the line. The senior rose to the occasion, setting down the side in order, starting with back-to-back strikeouts.

It was the first strikeout on a split-finger fastball in the dirt that helped him settle in.

“When I got the first batter out on a splitter, the first splitter I’ve executed in six weeks — other than bullpens, I hadn’t really had a great feel for it,” Salama said. “And seeing that swing and miss on a ball in the dirt, I was like: ‘All right, I feel like I’m back.’”

Two batters later Salama induced a popup off the bat of Monterey’s cleanup hitter to record the first save of his three-year varsity career.

“I was really excited because I saw it, it was coming right towards me,” Chavinson said. “I didn’t really have to move too much. I called [first baseman Nikhil Pathak] off and the second it hit in my glove, I was just super excited and just ran and gave Ben a hug and he’s like: ‘We did it!’”

Starting pitcher Reid Plamondon earned the win, working allowing two runs (one earned) on three hits through five innings of work. The big freshman right-hander improves his record to 7-1 with a 2.01 ERA.

The decision to turn to a freshman in the CCS finals was an easy one for Trujillo, as it allowed to piggyback staff ace Jackson Flanagan in relief to create a two-headed monster.

“He has really good stuff,” Trujillo said. “The scouting report is what it is, but we thought his best stuff matched up better with Flanny following him in relief. That was the game plan.”

The Menlo bats helped put the strategy in motion by staking Plamondon to an early lead.

The Knights jumped ahead 1-0 in the first with an infield single from Jack Freehill and a one-out single by Liam Widner to put runners at the corners. Then Menlo executed the wheel steal with the pitcher still in the stretch. Widner took off for second and drew a throw, with Freehill timing his break for the plate perfectly by bulling through the catcher before the throw arrived home.

Monterey (11-18) got the run back in the top of the second with a two-out RBI single from Luke Miramontes. But the bottom of the Menlo batting order set the table in the bottom of the inning, setting it up for the middle of the order to cash in. No. 7 hitter Fletcher Cahill led off with an infield single. Pathak followed with a walk and No. 9 hitter Renner Barnett got hit by a pitch to load the bases.

“Cahill and Renner, they’re really good hitters,” Trujillo said. “They can hit in the middle of the lineup, but I like them down there because we need some pieces at the bottom to get to [the top of the order].”

Monterey starting pitcher Tristan Trago induced back-to-back popups from Freehill and Chuck Wynn, but the Knights cashed in when Widner came up with a two-out single to center to score Cahill. Pathak then scored on a wild pitch, and Chavinson reached on an infield error, allowing Barnett to score, upping the lead to 5-1.

Plamondon worked into the fifth, with Monterey scratching out an unearned run thanks to Patrick Adams reached on an error to lead off the inning. The senior later scored on a sacrifice fly.

Flanagan took over in the sixth, but ran into trouble by allowing a leadoff single to Connor Rose, then hitting two batters and walking one. Adams got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to bring home a run. Then came one of the most pivotal defense plays of the game when, with the bases still loaded, Miramontes lifted a sacrifice fly to left fielder Zach Roeder to cut Menlo’s lead to 5-4.

Instead of trying to throw the runner out at the plate, however, Roeder wisely threw the ball into third base to keep the potential tying run at second.

“I felt like I was deep enough that I had no shot at him at home,” Roeder said. “And it was not the tying run. So, I felt like it was better to ... keep the runner at second and leave a chance at home if there were to be another hit.”

The decision loomed large as Jacob Mewborn reached on an infield error to reload the bases. But Flanagan wriggled out of the inning on a fly ball to strand bases full.

Trujillo then summoned Salama in the seventh to bring it home, and the senior did not disappoint.

“I’m usually not a nervous pitcher, because pitching is what I do, and I love pitching,” Salama said. “But since I hadn’t pitched in five weeks, I’m not going to lie, I was actually relatively nervous. Like, a one-run game, I want to prove my coaches right. That was the No. 1 thing that they had the confidence to put me on the mound, I want to prove them right.”

The CCS crown marks Menlo’s eighth all-time, and the fourth time the program has won the title in back-to-back years. Since Trujillo took the helm three years ago, the Knights are 8-1 in postseason games.

“They’re dawgs,” Trujillo said. “They’ve been battle tested. We’ve been doing it all year. ... It always comes down to those last three outs with these guys, but they’re ready for it. They were prepared in the moment, and they really came through.”

Menlo now advances to the CIF Northern California playoffs, opening next Tuesday. Brackets will be announced Sunday afternoon.