Just three days after winning the school’s first CCS playoff game in baseball since 2005, the Santa Clara Bruins left yet another giant pawprint on their journey towards immortality. The team is now one step away from a Division IV CCS Championship. On Tuesday night, May 27, the Bruins backed up an absolutely remarkable first-round comeback with a second-round game for the ages.
After rallying from down three with nobody on and two outs in the Bruins’ last at bats against Carlmont on May 24, the Bruins survived a 3.5-hour marathon of a game against Branham, one in which the team blew three different leads before finally prevailing 11-7 in nine innings.
On Saturday, Greg Salgado was the final hero of the night, launching his first-career high school home run to put the Bruins up 5-4.
“Angels in the Outfield, for sure,” chuckled Bruins Manager Pedro Martinez on escaping the first round with a win.
Those same angels must have followed the Bruins over to San Jose’s Excite Ballpark Tuesday night because the Bruins pulled arguably an even more impressive Houdini act. This time around, the final hero of the night would be senior John Kepner, but the list of heroes is a long one.
Santa Clara’s starting pitcher, Jaxton Chao, gave the Bruins a chance to win with four innings of work. His stat line may look pedestrian, having given up three runs, but Chao looked calm and composed despite all kinds of traffic on the bases.
In the third inning, Chao pitched through an error on what should have been an inning-ending double play. No problem, though. Chao shut the door with a strikeout and a weak grounder from the next two hitters.
Santa Clara would take its third lead of the game in the top of the fifth. After allowing Branham to tie the score at 1-1 and then 3-3, it looked like the visiting team would finally mount an insurmountable lead. A four-run rally by Santa Clara was set up by walks from Drew Diffenderfer and Salgado. A trio of clutch two-out singles by Dominick Chavarria (one RBI), Zach Gallegos (two RBI) and Connor Houle (one RBI), put the Bruins up 7-3.
The lead wouldn’t last. Kepner took over on the mound, inheriting a bases-loaded, nobody-out situation. Kepner struggled early and allowed all three inherited runners to score. Once it seemed like he had settled down, what looked like a routine ground ball to end the inning took a wicked hop over Salgado’s head at second base, allowing the tying run to score.
The game would head to the sixth inning tied 7-7. Leading off the top of the sixth, it looked like Kepner would atone for the runs scored in the previous inning when he launched a double off the left-field fence. Poor situational hitting the rest of the inning, though, led to Branham escaping the inning unscathed.
Branham wouldn’t be so lucky in the ninth. Houle got things started with a one-out walk. Andrew Traffas was hit by a pitch. Kepner drove home Houle with a single into the 5.5 hole. Diffenderfer smoked a single to right-center to make it 9-7. After a Charles Conley walk, Salgado blooped a single for an RBI. And finally, Chavarria hit a sacrifice fly, 11-7.
Bottom of the ninth, with one on and two away, Kepner induced a weak fly ball to center. It would land harmlessly into the sturdy pocket of Houle’s glove and the celebration was on. The Bruins advance to the CCS Championship!
