El Capitan offense comes to life as Gauchos snap losing streak against Merced

Elijah Reid provided the big hit the El Capitan High offense has been lacking for much of its five-game losing streak. Reid came through with a two-out, two-run single to get the Gauchos on the board against Merced in the third inning.

The hit sparked the offense as El Capitan erupted for four runs in the fourth and four more runs in the fifth as the Gauchos held on for a much-needed and possibly season-saving 10-7 win on Monday afternoon at El Capitan High.

“Last week was tough,” said El Captian coach Aaron Ruiz. “Losing one game can test your character. When you lose four games you start seeing a lot of things start happening. Kids trying to do too much. Our backs were against the wall this week and we came out fighting.”

El Capitan (12-11, 5-5 Central California Conference) and Merced (9-12, 3-5) are competing for one of the conference’s three playoff spots, trailing Turlock (15-5, 8-0) and Pitman (14-8, 7-1). The Gauchos finish the regular season with two games against Pitman this week. Merced finishes with two games against Golden Valley this week and two games against Atwater next week.

The Gauchos looked like they were headed for a sixth straight loss early against the Bears.

El Capitan committed four errors in the first inning which opened the door for three Merced runs against Gauchos ace Sai Davuluri.

The mood in the Gauchos dugout only got worse when El Capitan loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the inning and failed to score.

How desperate were the Gauchos trying to score?

Leadoff hitter Braiden Ward was thrown out trying to steal home on the catcher’s throw back to the pitcher. Merced starter Cole Huie fired back to the plate and Ward was tagged out by Bears catcher Rene Pantoja for the third out.

After leaving four runners on base through the first two innings, El Capitan finally broke through in the third inning when Reid came through with a two-out single to score Chase Whitaker and Zack Pilkington to cut the Merced lead to 3-2.

“We came in to the dugout after that first inning and our coaches kept telling us still believe,” Reid said. “That one big hit sparked us. We scored those two runs and then are bats started to get going. It felt really good to get that hit. I wasn’t trying to do anything special. I just wanted to do my job. Once I got it done it was like a sigh of relief.”

Reid’s big hit opened the flood gates.

The Gauchos took the lead in the fourth inning with four runs with the help of two-run doubles from Mark Sellers and Chase Whitaker to take a 6-3 lead.

“We just haven’t gotten that hit the last four games,” Ruiz said. “It was like once Elijah got that hit the confidence returned and we broke out. It was like we started believing again.”

The Gauchos racked up five more hits in the fifth inning to push across four more runs to extend the lead to 10-3. Ward singled in two runs, Sellers added another RBI single and Davuluri drove in run with a sacrifice fly.

After laboring through the first two innings, mostly because of the shaky defense behind him, Davuluri settled in and went six innings to pick up the win. The senior right-hander stuck out eight and surrendered eight hits and one walk.

“The biggest thing today is who we had on the hill,” Ruiz said. “You know Sai is going to give us a chance to win. Our guys know that. He’s not worrying about what is happening behind him.”

The Bears did save some tense moments for the seventh inning as they pushed four runs across. Tanner Pellissier hit a run-scoring single and Julian Verdin drove in two runs with a double.

The Bears cut the lead to 10-7 with two outs and had the tying run at the plate as they forced the Gauchos to use three different pitchers in the inning.

Chase Minor finally came on and struck out the final batter to end the game.

“This did seem like a season-saving type of game,” Whitaker said. “We were told we had to win out this week and that’s what we plan to do.”

This story was originally published May 1, 2017 at 9:15 PM with the headline "El Capitan offense comes to life as Gauchos snap losing streak against Merced."