Pilkington makes ugly look good in El Capitan baseball win

Jacob Pilkington isn’t the kid you send to the plate to have a pretty at-bat.

It’s not that the El Capitan High School senior can’t handle his own in the batter’s box, Gauchos coach Aaron Ruiz said. Pilkington simply has his own unique approach.

It was on display when it mattered most Wednesday afternoon. With the score tied and Sai Davuluri on third base following a leadoff triple in the bottom of the sixth, Pilkington delivered a one-out, run-scoring single on a ball above the letters. The first baseman fell behind 0-2 and then tomahawked a bouncing ball past a drawn-in Los Banos infield. It proved the difference in the game, as host El Capitan held off the Tigers for a 5-4 victory.

It was Pilkington’s third hit of the afternoon and his third RBI.

“That definitely wasn’t the pitch I was looking for,” Pilkington said, laughing. “After fouling off a curveball for strike two, I was just looking for any fastball. Apparently, it was close enough.

“I didn’t know if it was getting through off of the bat. Honestly, I was just happy to make contact.”

That wasn’t an issue for the Gauchos (10-5, 3-0 Western Athletic Conference). El Cap put constant pressure on Los Banos from start to finish, producing five hits and getting runners on base in every inning.

The problem for Ruiz’s squad was pushing those runners across the plate. Los Banos freshman Kody Cardoza struggled with his command for the first time since his call-up in March but managed to pitch his way around the trouble more often than not.

It started from the first pitch, as Braiden Ward tripled to lead off the bottom of the first. Cardoza walked the next two batters to load the bases with no outs. The right-hander limited the damage, however, yielding just one run on a Pilkington sacrifice fly.

It was that kind of afternoon for the Gauchos, never able to pull away and leaving 11 runners on base.

“That’s something we have to get better at, especially against a good team like Los Banos,” Ruiz said. “You allow them to hang around in a game and it’ll come back to haunt you.

“We have to go up with a good approach and have a good at-bat when we get runners in scoring position and less than two outs. Obviously, we had some good at-bats throughout the game, but if we were a little more consistent with it, it could have been a very different game.”

El Cap’s best offensive inning came in a three-run third.

The rally started unconventionally when Ward (2 for 3, two runs) tripped while rounding third on a Samuel Mora single. The Tigers got Ward in a rundown, but he dived under a tag attempt and scampered back safely to third. Mora, who hustled to third during the pickle, unexpectedly found himself in no-man’s land between second and third. Ward broke for home while the Tigers’ attention was on Mora and slid in safely ahead of a throw.

Pilkington and Chase Whitaker followed with run-scoring singles to make it a 4-1 game.

Los Banos (9-4, 2-1 WAC) clawed its way back in the fifth. After mustering just two hits against Whitaker through four innings, the Tigers pushed across two runs on two hits in the top of the fifth. Trent Mallonee got the scoring started with a sacrifice fly and Tyler Wilson (2 for 4) followed with an RBI single to pull Los Banos within one.

Pat Fuentes’ squad finished the comeback bid in the sixth, with Josh Gomes delivering a run-scoring single. Los Banos squandered an opportunity to take the lead, however, as Whitaker escaped a bases-loaded jam. It proved big, setting the stage for Pilkington’s heroics in the bottom half of the inning.

“I felt like we came out flat and spent the first three innings waiting to see what would happen instead of making it happen,” Fuentes said. “When you’re playing a team that’s as good as you, if not a little bit better, you can’t spot them three innings.

“The kids did what we expect of them the rest of the way. We’re the kind of squad that needs to be scrappy, and we fought our way back into it. The good news is we get a day to get refocused and then we have them at our place on Friday.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2016 at 8:44 PM with the headline "Pilkington makes ugly look good in El Capitan baseball win."