The Score: Harbor 11, Aptos 3
The Star: Harbor High senior Colin Gruber is known across the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League for his basketball game. During a pivotal matchup against Aptos High on Wednesday, the hoops star showed he can swing a mean stick as well.
Behind a Gruber two-run home run that gave the Pirates an early lead, the home team surged on to an 11-3 Harbor High victory over Aptos Wednesday afternoon in Santa Cruz.
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Gruber finished the game going 2-for-3 with a home run, a single, a walk and three RBI’s.
Aptos High’s senior second baseman Sandy Gonzales also earned star of the game honors with some smart base running. With his team already leading by a run, Gonzales avoided being caught in a rundown and eventually scored off a Pirates throwing error. The heads up play gave the Mariners a 2-0 lead after the top half of the first.
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The Turning Point: Down two in a hurry, Harbor began to chip away at the hole right away. Sophomore Conor Plant scored off senior Ozzy Hall’s timely RBI hit to open the scoring, then the big fly did some more damage. As Colin Gruber stepped up to the plate, all he was thinking was get a base hit to help his team. Instead, with another teammate standing on second base, Gruber drove the ball hard over the left field fence for his first long ball of the 2011 season.
The Mariners, who were coming off a hard fought 2-0 victory over Santa Cruz on Tuesday, jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead as John Evans scored off an RBI hit from Orey Wafford. Sandy Gonzales scored the second Mariners run off an error.
The Quote: Pirates head coach Joseph Allegri was very pleased with the way his team came back and put the pressure on Aptos. “This was a very quality win over a quality opponent,” Allegri said.
Gruber was also happy to get the win, but knows he will see the Mariners again very soon.
“We play these guys again coming up very soon and I am sure they will be out to get us, so hopefully we can do the same thing we did today,” Gruber said.
Aptos, now 5-2 in league, will back at it again on Friday afternoon.
“What I told the team is if we have all the bad stuff happen in one day, we will have a great season,” Aptos head coach Dave Heinevetter said. “After this game we will be a lot tighter as a team. We will learn some things about how we are supposed to take care of one another.”
What's Next? Aptos (12-8; 5-2 Santa Cruz Coast) will play host to Scotts Valley (3-4; 8-10-1 Santa Cruz Coast) on Friday at 4 pm. This game is very important to the Mariners who trail lead leading Soquel by only one game with only two weeks left in the season.
As for Harbor (11-8; 4-2 Santa Cruz Coast), they will be traveling to Felton to play San Lorenzo Valley (5-10; 2-5 Santa Cruz Coast) on Friday at 3:30 p.m.
Bottom Line: Harbor winning pitcher Lucas Hewitt worked six innings to earn the win. The home triumph pulls Harbor right into the thick of the SCCAL league title race alongside Aptos and first place Soquel. The Pirates scored seven runs in the final three innings of play.
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Aptos 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 - 3
Harbor 3 0 1 3 3 1 - - 11
Winning pitcher: Lucas Hewitt
Losing pitcher: Brandon Vale
Harbor Stats
Ozzy Hall 3-for-4 (3 RBI’s)
Tanner Richie 2-for-2 (walk, sac fly, three runs scored)
