Atwater sloppy in Oneto tourney baseball loss to San Leandro

Despite a shaky defense, the Atwater High School baseball team put itself one win away from playing for a tournament title.

However, Falcons coach Jarrod Pimentel knew his team would have to clean up its defense to beat San Leandro for its third consecutive tournament win.

It didn’t happen.

The Falcons committed five early errors to help the Pirates take a big lead early on their way to a 13-5 victory to earn a spot in Thursday’s championship game of the 57th annual Fran Oneto/Atwater-Winton Lions Easter Tournament at Memorial Ballpark.

“You’ve got to have good pitching and you have to play good defense to win, and we haven’t played good defense this whole tournament,” said Pimentel, whose team has made 15 errors in three tournament games. “We haven’t helped our pitchers out at all.”

The Pirates (11-1) will play St. Joseph (8-2) of Alameda in Thursday’s championship game at 7 p.m.

San Leandro earned its way into the title game by putting pressure on the Falcons (3-8) from start to finish.

Bradlee Beesley reached base all five times and scored four runs. The Cal Poly San Luis Obispo commit started the game with a double and scored on a wild throw by Atwater catcher Wyatt Pimentel.

The Pirates broke open the game with six runs in the third inning as they took advantage of two walks and two errors. Alex Perreira delivered the big blow with a two-run single as the Pirates sent nine batters to the plate.

San Leandro hit around the order again in the sixth as it scored five more runs to extend its lead to 12-2. Gerald Nervis drove in two runs with a single and Ethan Rich and Efrain Gomez had run-scoring singles in the inning.

The Pirates had at least one runner reach base in every inning.

“They had guys running all over the bases all game,” Jarrod Pimentel said. “We didn’t do a good job of holding guys on. They’re a good ballclub. Every one of their guys hit one through nine.”

Beesley led the way, going 3 for 3. Kyle Guerra, Rich and Perreira each had two hits as the Pirates totaled 12.

Noah Torres drove in the Falcons’ first two runs with an RBI triple in the third and a sacrifice fly in the fifth. Leadoff hitter Jacob Faulk had three of Atwater’s seven hits, including a double and a triple, and he scored two runs.

The Falcons threatened to get back in the game in the sixth by scoring three runs to cut the Pirates’ lead to 12-5. Daniel Vann, Javier Cardenas and Cody Rhoads drove in runs, and the Falcons had the bases loaded with one out, but San Leandro reliever Efrain Gomez struck out Torres and got Wyatt Pimentel to ground out sharply to first base to end the threat.

The Falcons will play Douglas of Minden, Nev., for third place Thursday at 4 p.m.

Other scores Wednesday include Douglas defeating Jerry Manuel of Sacramento 9-8, Livingston beating Mountain House 8-1 and St. Joseph defeating Redwood Christian of San Lorenzo 5-2.

Thursday’s schedule begins with Jerry Manuel facing Mountain House at 10 a.m., followed by Livingston playing Redwood Christian at 1 p.m.

This story was originally published March 30, 2016 at 10:38 PM with the headline "Atwater sloppy in Oneto tourney baseball loss to San Leandro."