Atwater opens Easter tournament with win over Livingston

Atwater High School has spent most of this baseball season playing from behind, with early deficits turning into seven losses in the Falcons’ first eight games.

There might have been a little of that “here-we-go-again” feeling when Livingston loaded the bases with no outs in the first inning Monday. But Atwater left-hander Adrian Estrada limited the damage to one run, and the Falcons answered with three runs in the bottom of the inning.

The Falcons (2-7) continued to capitalize on Wolves mistakes and opened the 57th annual Fran Oneto/Atwater-Winton Lions Easter Tournament with an 11-4 win at Memorial Ballpark.

“It was almost a flip of the script from the ‘Sweet Potato Joe Game’ against (Livingston) earlier this year,” Atwater coach Jarrod Pimentel said. “We got into trouble that first inning, but we were able to get out of it. That was big because it seems like we’re always playing catch-up.

“We got those runs in the first, and that was big because pitchers always seem to pitch better when they have a couple runs behind them.”

Estrada pitched well, giving up one earned run (and four total) in 6 1/3 innings to earn the win. The key for Estrada is throwing strikes.

“We really emphasize with him to concentrate on getting the first guy out each inning,” Pimentel said. “He’s not as good in the stretch. He’s better in the wind-up. Tonight, he didn’t have many walks.”

The Falcons came out hitting against Livingston right-hander Jose Diaz.

Jacob Parker and Cristian Curiel singled in runs in the first inning.

Atwater added three more runs in the second inning, highlighted by a run-scoring triple by Noah Torres and run-scoring singles by Jacob Faulk and Wyatt Pimentel.

“I think as a team we were seeing the ball better,” Wyatt Pimentel said. “We were making solid contact better than we have been.”

The Wolves (7-3-1), who defeated Atwater 11-4 on March 12, cut the Falcons’ lead to 6-3 with two runs in the fifth. Tony Gomez reached on an error to lead off and advanced to second when Eddie Avila reached on catcher’s interference.

Blake Jantz followed with a fly ball to center that was caught by Torres, who then tried to throw out Gomez attempting to advance to third, but his throw skipped into the dugout, allowing Gomez to score and Avila to advance to third.

Avila then scored on a straight steal, touching the corner of the plate to beat the tag and cut the lead to 6-3.

Atwater put away the game with five runs in the fifth as the Falcons took advantage of three Livingston errors, four walks and a hit batter. Atwater needed only one hit in the inning to extend the lead to 11-3.

“We hit the ball better tonight,” Jarrod Pimentel said. “I know (Livingston) helped out making errors, but as far as making contact, it was one of our better games. That was nice to see.”

In other tournament games Monday night, San Leandro defeated Mountain House 7-6, Redwood Christian-San Lorenzo edged Jerry Manuel-Sacramento 4-3 and St. Joseph-Alameda defeated Douglas-Minden, Nev., 2-1.

This story was originally published March 28, 2016 at 11:02 PM with the headline "Atwater opens Easter tournament with win over Livingston."