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Ocean View players (from left) Luke Gordon, Austin Aldous and Mateo Rodriguez after Thursday’s game. (Photo: Tom Connolly, For OC Sports Zone).
Freshman Austin Aldous throws a complete game.
Freshman Austin Aldous pitched a complete game to lead the Ocean View High School baseball team to a 4-2 non-league victory over Fullerton Thursday afternoon at Ocean View.
The Seahawks, who had lost three of their last five games, got back to their winning ways and improved their record to 7-5 while the Indians fell to 7-4.
After giving up two runs in the second inning, Aldous allowed only one hit the rest of the way. He retired Fullerton in order in the third through the sixth innings to earn his first win of the season.
“I was throwing strikes and I felt really strong,” said the lefthanded 14-year-old Aldous. “I wanted to keep the ball in play and my defense was awesome. It was fun to be out there with the older players. I felt like I settled down after the second inning.”
Ocean View Coach Tanner VanMaanen said his young pitcher has given the team a huge lift.
“We’ve been injury-plagued this season and our pitchers are fully extended, so we had to bring Austin up from the freshmen team,” said VanMaanen. “This was his third varsity start and he previously had two no decisions that he should have won. All three of his pitches were working well today and we needed him to have a big game and he came through strong.”
Fullerton starting pitcher Cash Coffman had control problems in the first inning as he walked two batters and hit two other batters. Fullerton turned a 6-4-3 double-play to escape the inning without further damage and trailed 1-0.
Fullerton pushed across two runs in the second inning to take a 2-1 lead, but Mateo Rodriguez’s two-out RBI triple tied the game at 2-2 in the bottom of the second.
“It’s a huge win for us; we had great energy today,” said Rodriguez. “We got guys on base and we had some clutch hitting.’’
Seahawks first baseman Jason Lewis singled with two outs in the third inning and then went to second on a hit batter. He scored when an Indians outfielder dropped a fly ball in right center. However, on the play, the Fullerton outfielder alertly picked up the ball and hit the cutoff man, who cut down the Ocean View runner at home for the final out of the inning, keeping the Indians only one run behind at 3-2.
However, the Fullerton bats went silent as Aldous gained momentum retiring 12 straight Indians batters. He gave up a lead-off seventh inning single, but then got a fielder’s choice, followed by a slick 4-6-3 double play to and the game.
“It didn’t matter which of his pitches he threw, whether it was the changeup, fastball of curveball, they were all working,” said Ocean View catcher Luke Gordon.
Fullerton Coach Shaun Hill expects his team to move on.
“I tip my cap to them, they are a good program and they will be in our league next year, so we’re going to see a lot of them,” said Hill. “We had control problems in the first inning and we made a critical error in the outfield will that cost us. But we have to move on, because we have another game on Saturday.”
Noah Lee came on in relief in the second inning and pitched well into the sixth inning and keeping Fullerton within striking distance. He allowed four hits, but the Indians committed a few miscues that proved costly.
—Tom Connolly, For OC Sports Zone
