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Sean McCance fires a pitch for Woodbridge Monday vs. Beckman. (Photo courtesy Brad Perry).
Woodbridge High School’s baseball team was faced once again with a must-win situation in order to keep its hopes alive of winning the Pacific Coast League title.
Monday afternoon, the Warriors responded again with their second straight victory over Beckman, defeating the Patriots 6-0 on a 90-degree day at Patriot Park. Beckman had a one-game lead going into the game and for the second game in a row had a chance to claim a share of the crown.
But now, Woodbridge (the defending PCL champion) and Beckman are tied for the top spot going into the final week of the regular season. Woodbridge (19-7, 13-3) plays Laguna Hills twice and Beckman (19-7, 13-3) faces Northwood two times. Woodbridge took two of three games from Beckman.
Sean McCance pitched the first six innings to get the victory, allowing just hits and striking out six. He walked two and hit two. Brandon Abernathy came on to pitch a scoreless seventh.
“You can’t say enough about Sean McCance, he had a pretty big game,” said Woodbridge Coach Ryan Brucker. “He kind of decided this was going to be a game we weren’t going to lose and he put the team on his back. I’m really proud of him.
“It was a real team effort, we executed today and we’re playing really good baseball. It keeps us in the hunt for first and still got two more and Beckman is a good team and we will just have to play the next two and see what happens, but it’s nice to be even with them now.”
To see the slide show, click on the first photo:
McCance is 5-2 overall and 4-0 in PCL games.
McCance was also able to help his team offensively with an RBI double in the Warriors three-run fifth inning that put Woodbridge ahead 6-0. Chase Quezada had an RBI single and Matthew Kuromoto an RBI double in the inning.
“We played great and the defense behind me was great,” said McCance, who pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings in relief in the Warriors 4-3 win over Beckman Thursday. “I just wanted to go out there and throw strikes and we put up runs against a really good pitcher and a really good team and I’m really happy about our performance out there.
“We got two more games ahead of us against Laguna Hills and they’re a good team as well and we need to finish the business and get the job done. We have a really good team and we have great chemistry.”
Woodbridge moved ahead with three runs in the second inning off Beckman starter Zach Ireland.
Kyler Collver singled and Jake Admundson reached on an fielder’s choice error. Anthony DeMarco followed with a single to left field. He got one RBI when Collver scored and Amundson scored when the ball went past the Beckman left fielder. Abernathy then singled and a third run scored on another error.
Beckman tried to break the shutout bid in the seventh. Jackson Snitko doubled and Cameron Do-Khanh singled, but Abernathy got Ashton Kanegae to pop out and end the game.
Abernathy had three hits and McCance, Collver and DeMarco had two hits each for Woodbridge, which outhit Beckman 10-4. Beckman had three errors.
Woodbridge plays at Laguna Hills Wednesday at Laguna Hills and Thursday at Ryan Lemmon Stadium. Beckman meets Northwood Wednesday at Patriot Park and Thursday at Northwood.
Both Woodbridge and Northwood are headed to the CIF playoffs.
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
