Skyline sweeps conference baseball opener from Cañada

Designated hitter Ben Giovannetti added a two-run blast in a five-run ninth inning — his third home run over the last two games — to put the game on ice. Skyline homered seven times in the series, including a 5-4 win at Cañada last Tuesday, and a 9-3 win, Thursday at Skyline.

“It’s not what we’re trying to do, obviously,” Trojans manager Tony Brunicardi said. “We’re just trying to go put together quality at-bats. But [coaches Anthony Granato and Chris Miguel], they do an amazing job with our offensive guys. And guys are really starting to buy in, and really starting to understand the approach that we’re trying to take against opposing teams.”

Skyline has now won five straight. It is the Trojans’ first series sweep over Cañada since 2022, when they swept both two-game series over the Colts en route to capturing the Coast Conference North championship.

“[The goal] is always two out of three for a week,” Brunicardi said. “To have the opportunity to get three was outstanding. We knew the third one was going to be the toughest. That’s a good club. They’re a very good club, very well coached, and our guys stepped up.”

For Cañada (0-3, 12-11), it has been a season of dramatic ups and downs. The Colts started the year in a 1-6 rut before bouncing back with 10 straight wins. Since then, manager Tony Lucca’s club has dropped five of its last six.

“I think our season has been a season of streaks, really,” Lucca said. “We started off kind of slow, and then we kind of put it together. Got some good continuity going and everything, and we got hot. And we ran into a couple close games, and it kind of didn’t go our way. Since then, it’s kind of snowballed against us a little bit, and we’re just trying to dig ourselves out of the hole we’re putting ourselves into.”

Everything was going Cañada’s way through the early innings Saturday. Starting pitcher Devin Bettencourt posted three zeroes, and in the bottom of the third the Colts took advantage of two Skyline errors to jump out to a 3-0 lead, highlighted by and RBI grounder to first base by Max Ross that saw base runner Carson Vance beat the throw home for the first run of the game. Then, with runners on second and third, Skyline starting pitcher Will Hansen uncorked one wild pitch that scored two runs, with Kyle Bittner jogging home from third, and Ross racing all the way around from second.

But in the top of the fourth, Bettencourt got squeezed on a potential third-strike call to Skyline cleanup hitter Melara. The call didn’t go Bettencourt’s way, Lucca vehemently objected from the dugout, and two pitches later Melara teed off for a booming solo home run to left, his second of the year.

“He made some quality pitches that probably didn’t go our way,” Lucca said, “which maybe kind of forced him to press a little bit. I feel like he was throwing strikes, the umpire wasn’t giving them to us. There was some ball that he had to go over the plate a little bit, and those guys are good hitters. You give them a chance to hit a decent pitch and they’re going to make you pay.”

Skyline kept rolling from there. Caovinh Nguyen followed with a four-pitch walk, setting the table for Ceron to tie it with a two-run homer to left, his first of the year, to tie it 3-3.

“Our war cry since the beginning of the year has been: It’s how we respond that’s going to define us,” Brunicardi said. “And they’ve bought in as a group, and they’ve shown toughness and resilience over and over. And that’s what’s going to define us for the rest of the year.”

In the fifth, the Trojans again struck quickly. Ethan Reader led off the frame with a solid single to right. Then the left-handed hitting Fairchild connected with a thigh-high fastball and deposited it over the right-field wall to give Skyline a 5-3 lead.

“Honestly, we’re just staying with the approach,” Fairchild said of Skyline’s recent power surge. “If we hit one out, it’s a mistake. We’re just oppo, middle op, and see what happens.”

The late innings got ugly with both Skyline and Cañada digging deep for pitching depth. Each team used six pitchers in the game. And after trading single runs in the seventh, the Trojans scored another single run in the eighth, countered by a two-run Colts rally in the bottom of the frame to close it to 8-6.

That’s when sophomore left-hander Cristian Padilla emerged from the Skyline bullpen to settle things down. The southpaw entered with two on and two out in the eighth to induce a dribbling groundout to third baseman Kaito Haake, who made a nice charging play and a running throw off his back foot, to end the inning.

Padilla closed it out with 1 1/3 innings of work to earn the save, his second of the series, and his third of the year.

Reader paced all hitters with a 3-for-6 day. Fairchild, a freshman out of Berkeley High School, was 2 for 4 to boost his season average to .307.

“He’s a throwback,” Brunicardi said. “He reminds of some guys that I played with. He’s a baseball rat. … He is a guy that will run through a wall, over a wall, or around it. He’s going to figure a way out.”

Cañada suffered a loss due to injury when freshman center fielder Ross, the Colts’ leading hitter with a .407 average, dislocated a pinky finger while sliding into second on a stolen base in the third inning. He initially stayed in the game but departed in the fourth. Lucca said it is too soon to tell how much time Ross will miss.

“He’s a big part of the team,” Lucca said. “He’s been a great offensive addition. He plays great defense in the outfield as well. Yeah, he’s a big part of our team, for sure. We’ve got guys that can hopefully fill in, but it’s hard to replace guys like that, for sure.”

CSM drops series finale at Chabot

The College of San Mateo Bulldogs won their opening series in Coast Conference North play but missed the chance to sweep Saturday with a 19-8 loss at Chabot College-Hayward (1-2 Coast North, 14-8 overall).

The Bulldogs (2-1, 12-8) outhit Chabot 14-11 in the contest, but 10 walks and four hit batsmen by CSM pitchers, along with a critical CSM error to open a six-run seventh inning for the Gladiators, proved too much to overcome. Chabot took advantage by clubbing three home runs, including back-to-back homers in a five-run first, a three-run blast by TJ Costello, followed by a solo shot from Liam Forsyth.

CSM rallied back to take the lead. Rowan Flesch doubled home a run in the fourth to tie it, and Charlie Welch delivered a sacrifice fly in the fifth to put the Bulldogs ahead 6-5. But the Gladiators answered with seven runs in the bottom of the fifth, highlighted by a two-run homer from Raoul Fabian, his Coast North leading seventh of the year. A two-run CSM sixth made it 12-8, but Chabot scored six more in the seventh and one in the eighth.

Felsch paced the Bulldogs with his third three-game of the season. He was 4 for 13 with four RBIs in the series and is now hitting .348 on the year, while leading the team with six home runs and 25 RBIs.

CSM won two straight over Chabot to open conference play, with a 9-8 victory last Tuesday in Hayward, followed by a 9-2 home win Thursday.

One wild Saturday

Anyone planning on attending a Saturday junior college baseball game should plan to make a day of it. The Skyline-Cañada series finale finished with a game time of 3 hours, 44 minutes. CSM at Chabot took even longer at 3:47.

There were 19 walks in the Skyline-Cañada game, 11 issued by Skyline pitchers and eight by Cañada. CSM and Chabot combined for 16 walks, including six by Chabot.

There were only two 1-2-3 innings recorded in Hayward, with Bulldogs reliever Danny Peters setting the side down in order in the fourth, and Gladiators reliever William Aviles setting down the side in order in the seventh. There were no such 1-2-3 innings at Cañada, with at least one baserunner reaching in every half inning.