Mater Dei finds little bit extra to knock off Los Alamitos
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Baseball playoffs: Lancers score three in top of ninth then hold on for 5-4 victory.
LOS ALAMITOS Brian Frattali’s two-run single capped a three-run Mater Dei ninth inning that lifted the Monarchs to a 5-4 victory over Los Alamitos on Friday afternoon in the quarterfinals of the CIF-SS Division I baseball playoffs.
With the victory and Orange Lutheran’s loss to Norco, the Monarchs (24-6) are the last Orange County team still alive in the Division I bracket. Los Alamitos, which saw its 13-game winning streak snapped, ends its season at 26-4.
Mater Dei will face Simi Valley in the semifinals on Tuesday at UC Riverside.
Mater Dei loaded the bases in the ninth with Tyler Rahmatulla’s double and walks to Jacob Medina and Aaron Northcraft. The Griffins’ Beau Wright (10-1) was in his fifth inning of relief after throwing five innings Tuesday in a victory over Canyon.
Frattali brought home two runs with his hit, and a pair of Los Alamitos miscues helped the Monarchs score their third run of the inning.
That final run proved to be the difference as Los Alamitos’ Matt Avery connected for a two-out homer off Monarchs reliever Jake Hamblin in the bottom of the inning.
Northcraft opened the scoring with a solo homer off Travis Garrett in the first, but the Griffins came back with a pair of runs in the third, scoring on Avery’s single and Brian Compton’s double.
The Monarchs tied the score in the fifth on pinch-hitter Matt Duggan’s sacrifice fly, which scored Konnor Armijo.
Los Alamitos let a golden opportunity to break the tie slip away in the sixth. Compton led off the inning with a triple to the wall in left-center field, but pinch-runner Mario Quesada was caught off third for the first out on a fielder’s choice.
The Griffins got two more runners on base in the inning, but Northcraft struck out Brian Tripp to get out of the jam.
“He’s a competitor,” Mater Dei coach Burt Call said of Northcraft. “He has a tremendous amount of fight in him and was able to keep his composure in that situation.”
Contact the writer: preps@ocvarsity.com
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