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Century’s Andy Santana throws a pitch to Portola’s Zeke Abundis. (PHOTOS: Jacob Ramos, For OC Sports Zone).
Century High School’s baseball team, the league champion from the Coast League, met Portola Wednesday in the final regular season game for both teams at Portola.
Century won the non-league matchup 7-0 and now looks ahead to the CIF playoffs. It was the final game of the season for Portola (9-17), which did not advance to the playoffs competing in the Pacific Coast League.
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It was a day of senior celebration for Portola.
Despite knowing their season was over after Wednesday, the Bulldogs spirits were high in the dugout. Postgame in an interview with OC Sports Zone, Portola Coach Bryan Resnick described the feelings of the day as he played all nine seniors in their final high school games.
“The last couple of years, we’ve had [final games] have some meaning, so we had to be strategic while also trying to play seniors, but today was just for the seniors,” Resnick said. “The rest of the players were on board with it, and they liked seeing the seniors play positions that they weren’t used to playing.”
Portola started the game with senior pitcher Dominic Dave, who surrendered two runs in the first inning and gave way to fellow senior Caleb Rockwell.
Rockwell got gasps from the visiting Century crowd when he threw from both sides of the mound, pitching to eight batters with his right arm and one with his left. Rockwell finished his season with an outing where he gave up one unearned run on 1 ⅔ innings pitched with three strikeouts. Portola used five pitchers in the game, all seniors.
Despite the loss, Portola was not without highlight plays on the afternoon. Center fielder David Lee helped get the Bulldogs out of a fourth inning bases loaded jam when he threw out a Century runner attempting to tag up from third base to prevent a run from scoring.
In the next at-bat, Portola’s third pitcher of the afternoon, Zeke Abundis, induced a flyout to get out of the frame scoreless.
On the other side, Century (21-7) came into the game knowing post season baseball was just on the horizon. Nothing but a tuneup, Wednesday’s victory was just another stepping stone in what the Centurions hope is a long stretch of baseball in May.
The story of the game for Century was a dominant start by sophomore pitcher Andy Santana. Santana went four strong innings for Century, striking out seven Bulldogs in four scoreless innings. Despite the strong stat-line, Santana said he felt he underperformed and elaborated on his outing post game.
“Definitely going into the game I didn’t feel my best [and] my stuff wasn’t really working,” Santana said. “[Regardless], got the job done today. Looking forward to CIF, ready to dominate next week.”
Errors and some misplayed balls by Portola’s defense allowed the Century lead to balloon to 7-0. Alongside the errors by Portola was an abundance of patience at the plate and timely hitting by Century. The Centurions benefited by seven walks and a hit batter, scoring two of their runners who reached on walks.
Century got a massive boost from Miguel Ulloa, who went 2 for 3 with a pair of doubles and two runs scored. Santana also helped his own cause, scoring a run and going 1 for 3 with a single.
Despite the blowout, it appeared that everybody in attendance, from the players to the fans, knew the game was much bigger than the score for both programs.
Century Coach Theo Cortes sang praises for his program and their efforts throughout the season post game, specifically referencing the team’s top finish in the Coast League and the bragging rights that come with it.
“It [feels] good, [the league] is basically most of the schools that are in the inner cities, and we can claim that we’re the best school in the inner cities, ” Cortes said.
Century is poised to begin its next CIF run and will learn of the team’s pairing on Monday, May 12.