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Estancia’s John Uchytil (middle) is mobbed by teammates after hitting a grand slam Tuesday. (Photos: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
Estancia High School left fielder John Uchytil capped a big day for the Eagles with a grand slam home run in the fifth inning, his first varsity round-tripper, in an Orange Coast League showdown with Costa Mesa.
Estancia also got outstanding defense and solid pitching from two freshmen who were making their varsity debut and some other timely hits to defeat Costa Mesa 10-5 Tuesday at Costa Mesa.
Estancia (13-2, 6-1) moves ahead of the Mustangs (14-2, 4-1) in the league standings. The teams are scheduled to wrap up the series Thursday at 3:30 p.m. at Angel Stadium, weather permitting.
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“Obviously winning game one in this series is huge, our league is pretty evenly matched and since we switched to this home and home format, game one is big for us and to come out and win today to set ourselves up for position at the end of the week to at least possibly sweep, but at least we tied them, is great momentum for us,” said Estancia Coach Nate Goellrich.
Estancia held out starting pitcher Miles Moyer with an injury and relied on freshmen Lincoln Silva and MIes Dodge to start out on the mound. The two allowed just one hit and two runs. Silva, who had two strikeouts and didn’t allow a hit in three innings, was credited with the win. Luke Costlow and James De La O finished it out on the mound.
“We did a lot of little things, Moyer, our number two, was out, he’s been throwing games for us but we kept him out for precautionary reasons with a minor injury and we called up Silva and Dodge, two freshmen, and asked them to keep us in the game, get us through four innings, they almost got us through five with a 10-1 lead,” Goellrich said.
“I can’t say enough about those guys, they had no idea coming to practice I was going to call them up and for them to come out in this moment, obviously a city rivalry, to do that for us and let Luke take over and James finish it, was an amazing feat by those guys to step up in the moment for us.”
Estancia moved ahead with a run in the third inning off of Costa Mesa starter Michael Joyce. Gabe Avila was hit by a pitch and came around to score on an RBI single by Cole Lefebvre. In the fourth inning, Andrew Coyotzi singled, was sacrificed to second by Riley Witte and scored on a double by Avila to give Estancia a 2-0 lead.
The Eagles then broke the game open with eight runs in the fifth inning to take a 10-0 lead.
Witte had a big two-run single, Avila drove home a run on a squeeze and Uchytil capped the inning with the slam.
“Throughout the day, some calls didn’t go my way,” said Uchytil, who was 2 for 4 with a run scored and an RBI. “I think I play better when I have a little anger inside of me. I took it out on that pitch and I think I knew when I hit it, it felt pretty nice. It’s the first home run in my varsity career. I think we can definitely take first in league this year, it’s going well so far.”
“I told him not to miss, he’s a great hitter for us with a great eye,” added Goellrich. “They were coming in on on him and it was only a matter of time before he was able to turn on that thing and I’m very glad he hit that one over the fence for us to kind of seal it for us and help us get to the finish line.”
Costa Mesa tried to chip away at the lead scoring two runs in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Omar Gutierrez and and RBI single by Sam Stute. The Mustangs added three more runs in the seventh.
Grady Jackson had a sacrifice fly, Matt Anderson had an RBI single and Will Clark an RBI double.
Lefebvre had a big day at the plate for Estancia, going 3 for 4 with a run scored and an RBI. Wylan Rottschafer was 2 for 4 with a double, Clark was 2 for 4 with an RBI and Stute 1 for 3 with an RBI for Costa Mesa.
The teams are hopeful of playing the next game Thursday at Angel Stadium. But if it can’t be played there, the contest would be moved to Estancia either Thursday or Friday depending on the weather, Goellrich said.
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—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
