Baseball: JSerra gets gigantic win over Mater Dei
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How big was this game for JSerra? Big enough that it could accommodate ace ‘Jumbo’ Joe Kurrasch--in a rare relief appearance.
Pitching out of the bullpen for the first time this season, Kurrasch helped the Lions close out a 6-4, come-from-behind victory over top-ranked Mater Dei this evening at Mater Dei.
‘If it was close at all, I wanted the ball,’ said Kurrasch, who pitched two scoreless innings to notch his first save and help No. 23 JSerra (9-5 overall, 5-2 Trinity League) pull into a tie alongside the Monarchs (12-2, 5-2) for first place in the league standings.
Mater Dei took a 4-3 lead into the sixth inning following Aaron Northcraft’s three-run homer in the fifth, but it wouldn’t last long. Clay Williamson smacked a run-scoring double to left-center field to tie the score in the sixth and Austin Hedges followed two batters later with an RBI single to right-center to put the Lions ahead, 5-4.
Kurrasch entered in the bottom of the inning and immediately pitched himself into a white-knuckle jam.
Derek Campbell doubled to right with one out and went to third on Cory Hahn’s single to right-center, setting up a showdown between Kurrasch and the hot-hitting Northcraft with two on and only one out. Kurrasch got Northcraft to pop up in the infield on an outside fastball and then got Brian Frattali to ground out to end the inning.
JSerra added an insurance run in the seventh on Matt Paradise’s suicide squeeze before Kurrasch pitched a scoreless seventh to give the Lions their first victory in three games this season against the Monarchs.
‘If we were going to have a chance to be a league champion, we had to beat Mater Dei,’ JSerra Coach Brett Kay said.
Mater Dei stranded 10 baserunners and watched innings go awry in maddening fashion. The Monarchs stranded the bases loaded in the first inning and did not score in the third despite opening the inning with three consecutive singles. Hahn hurt his team’s cause in that inning when he led off with a single but was thrown out after taking a wide turn around first base.
Mater Dei also had two on with none out in the fifth before JSerra reliever Reed Reilly (1-0) struck out the next three batters.
Still, the Monarchs fought back from 1-0 and 3-1 deficits before the Lions mounted their final comeback.
‘That was probably one of the best high school games I’ve been a part of,’ Kay said.
--Ben Bolch