Royals baseball took the top team in the channel league to eight innings on Friday ultimately letting it slip away from them in extra innings, 2-1. San Marcos (6-19) and Santa Barbara (17-7-1) both entered Friday’s game with different motives. The Royals welcomed the Dons to Joe Mueller field looking to cause chaos in the channel league standings with a win while the Dons had sights on securing the top spot in the league with just three games to go.
Strong pitching from the Royals Junior, David Burkholder helped hold the game scoreless until the bottom of the third when San Marcos drew first blood.
With two outs in the inning, Junior Mason Crang connected on a ground single in the 3rd base gap, as freshman Quinn Melton held patient in the count and landed himself on base in the ensuing at bat courtesy of a walk. Melton stole second base shortly after and the Dons attempted to throw him out to retire the inning, but a costly error by the Dons allowed Crang to steal for home and get the party started with the Royals striking first, 1-0.
Junior Miles Herbert led the way on offense for San Marcos pouring in two hits in Friday’s matchup against the Dons while senior Kieran Babai, sophomore Patrick Foster and Melton each tallied a hit respectively.
After a 1-2-3 top half for the Royals, San Marcos had a chance of exploding the lead even bigger in the bottom of the fourth, finding themselves in scoring position. but to no avail. Burkholder continued to shine on the mound though as he tossed five innings and came away with five strikeouts, only allowing one run on the day.
The Dons got on the board, tying up the score in the top of the fifth but the Royals were quick to stop the bleeding as a pop fly out to center field retired the top half of the inning.
The Royals had yet another opportunity to cash in runs in the bottom of the sixth with runners on 2nd and 3rd but came up empty for the second time after a strikeout and ground out held the score at one apiece entering the last inning of regulation.
Senior Alexi Stegner came in to relief for San Marcos after the fifth inning and held steady on the bump, leading the Royals to another 1-2-3 top half of the 7th while also striking out Santa Barbara’s Kai Mult in the final at bat of regulation. Stegner pitched three innings of his own, including coming away with a pair of strikeouts and only allowing one run in his final crosstown game.
In the top of the 8th with two outs, Santa Barbara’s Jetner Welch made contact with a go-head solo home run to give the Dons a one run advantage over the Royals. That would end up being all they needed to come away with a win as in the bottom of the 8th the Royals found themselves in the position to keep the game alive but unfortunately a ground out by sophomore Austin Downing put the nail in the coffin as the Dons just barely survived the Royals in eight heavy innings.
The Royals look to end their season on a high note as they take on Buena (4/29) and (5/1) to finish out the season.
