Ceres capitalizes on El Capitan errors to clinch WAC baseball crown

Sai Davuluri gave the pitching performance the El Capitan High School baseball team needed, but the Gauchos couldn’t make the plays behind him.

The Bulldogs scored three unearned runs in the first three innings and held on for a 4-2 win to clinch the Western Athletic Conference championship Monday at Ceres High.

El Capitan (12-9-1, 8-3 WAC) went into the two-game series needing a sweep to win the conference title.

“I thought Sai threw better than he had all year,” Gauchos coach Aaron Ruiz said. “He kept their hitters off balance. They’re really aggressive, and he limited them to four hits. Unfortunately, we didn’t carry the leather behind him.”

Izaiah Hernandez led off the bottom of the first with a single. He was then sacrificed to second and advanced to third on an error, which enabled him to score on a groundout by Brad Bussard to give Ceres (21-5, 10-1) a 1-0 lead.

A dropped fly ball in the third inning plated two more runs for the Bulldogs to extend the lead to 3-0.

Trailing 4-1 in the seventh, the Gauchos brought the tying run to the plate with runners on the corners and one out. Ceres starter Drew Stahl was able to get a comebacker and a flyout to limit the damage to one run and close out the victory.

Sammy Mora and Tyler Skelton had two hits each for the Gauchos.

The teams play again today at El Capitan at 4 p.m.

This story was originally published May 5, 2015 at 2:40 PM with the headline "Ceres capitalizes on El Capitan errors to clinch WAC baseball crown."