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Mission Viejo players, including pitcher Josh Brons (No. 31) celebrate Wednesday’s victory over Ayala. (Photo: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
Mission Viejo High School’s baseball team broke open a close game with four runs in the top of the fifth inning to defeat Ayala 7-3 on the final day of the Ryan Lemmon Invitational Wednesday at the Great Park.
The Diablos (13-7 overall) finished the 32-team tournament with a 3-1 record,.
Mission Viejo was able to bounce back from a 4-3 loss to Brea Olinda on Tuesday night.
“It was a great week, it was a frustrating loss last night (Tuesday) but I’m very proud of the way they battled back for today to get us right back on track,” said Mission Viejo Coach Daniel Holley.
The Diablos got solid pitching from starter Max Osika and relievers Cooper Donnelson and Josh Brons.
“We got a good start on the mound, that was his (Osika’s) first start this year, we’ve been fortunate to have a lot of good pitching this year and so he hasn’t really had many good opportunities, now we give him an opportunity to start and he went 4 2/3 innings with zero earned runs,” Holley said. “That’s exacty what we wanted.”
The Diablos took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning. Seth Mannos singled and scored on an RBI single by Keenan Anzai.
Then in the top of the fourth Mission Viejo used three hits, including an RBI single by Mannos and five walks to score four runs and move ahead 5-0. Anzai and Jack Wade got RBI when they walked with the bases loaded.
Ayala (9-7) parlayed a single, a walk, a hit batter and an error into an unearned run in the bottom of the fourth to cut the lead to 5-1.
But Mission Viejo added two more runs in the fifth, one coming on an RBI single by Jack Boucher, to go ahead 7-1.
The Bulldogs cut the lead to 7-3 with two runs in the bottom of the fifth inning on RBI doubles by Caleb Trugman and Jake Lemoine. But Ayala was held scoreless in the final two innings.
Holley was pleased with the hitting of Mannos, the senior catcher.
“He had three hits today, we’ve kind of been platooning him with Brandon Cole and he came in and did a great job behind the plate and squared a few balls up,” Holley said.
Mission Viejo will return to league play next week.
“We got Tesoro next week and we will try to roll this momentum into that,” Holley said.
–Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
