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La Habra pitchers (from left) Jared Day and Matthew Viveros and catcher Izaiah Posada contributed to Thursday’s win. (Photo: Tom Connolly, For OC Sports Zone).
Jared Day and Matthew Viveros combined to pitch a four-hit shutout to lead La Habra High School’s baseball team to a 6-0 victory over Sunny Hills in a Freeway League game Thursday afternoon at Sunny Hills High.
The duo struck out 14 Lancers batters.
“I was a little sore today, because I threw 103 pitches last week,” said Day, a junior right hander. “My curveball was on but then it started to slack a little, but I had good location. When I got in a jam, I kept saying to myself, ‘just throw strikes.’”
Day, who entered the game with a 0.76 ERA, pitched the first 4 1/3 innings, walked two batters and struck out eight to earn the win. Viveros came on in relief and faced 11 batters and struck out six and walked three. He did not give up a hit.
Highlanders Coach Jack Brooks said the plan was to split the game between Day and Viveros.
“We wanted them both to get work in today, so we had planned to have them split the pitching duties,” Brooks said. “Jared is a kid with moxie and confidence and he’s been like that all year for us. Matt has also been dominant and electric and he’s been getting strikeouts.”
“I didn’t have my best stuff, but I kept pushing through,” said Viveros, a senior, who also had a double, scored a run and stole a base.
Izaiah Posada led off the La Habra second inning by getting on base on an error. He was sacrificed to second by Jacob Garcia and scored on Luke Leichter’s two-out RBI single, giving the Highlanders a 1-0 lead.
Posada gave credit to his pitchers.
“JD (Jared Day) and Matt are special,” said Posada, who also scored two runs, had a hit and a stolen base. “Matt has the best slider in high school baseball and he’s hard throwing and he’s amazing to catch.”
La Habra (10-2-2, 3-1) took advantage of two Lancers miscues in the third inning to up its lead to 3-0. Garcia led off the fourth inning with a double and scored on Jonah Mayo’s two-out RBI single to give the Highlanders a 4-0 lead.
Sunny Hills ( 7-7-1, 0-4) had scoring opportunities in the second, third and fourth innings as the Lancers had two runners on in each inning, but Day was able to pitch himself out of trouble. Sunny Hills stranded nine runners on base.
“JD had command and had them off balance,” said Posada.
La Habra pushed across single runs in the sixth and seventh innings to round out the scoring. The Lancers had two runners on in the seventh inning, but Viveros sealed the victory with a strikeout to preserve the shutout.
“We played well but we made a few mental mistakes,” said Sunny Hills Coach Chris Vogt. “We’re still a young team and there are lessons to be learned, but these guys are focused in practice and they are competing hard.”
Brayden Chen pitched well for the Lancers, but the Sunny Hills’ defense made three costly errors behind him. Chen pitched five innings and struck out five and did not walk a batter.
Next week La Habra will face Fullerton, which is undefeated in league.
“We’re looking forward to playing Fullerton; we’ll be ready for them,” Day added.
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—Tom Connolly, For OC Sports Zone
