Sage alone at top

IRVINE — The Sage Hill School baseball team has hit five balls over the fence this season. But merely ticking more than a dozen off the backstop screen Friday proved to be enough to produce a doggedly earned and momentous 5-4 Academy League win at Crean Lutheran.

The Lightening battled through at-bat after at-bat against hard-throwing Crean senior right-hander Will Tomlinson, who eventually left the game with two outs in the sixth inning having thrown more than 130 pitches and registered 12 of his 17 outs via strikeouts.

Sage Hill senior shortstop Cole Tait greeted senior Saints’ reliever Cooper McCoy with a two-run single to left field for the winning margin, giving Tait four runs batted in for the game.

Tait’s biggest hit also made a winner out of Sage freshman starter Ashwin Chona, who improved to 10-0. In addition, it gave the visitors (22-1, 10-0 in league) their second straight unbeaten outright league title, extended the Lightning winning streak to 21 games, and surely lifted Coach Dominic Campeau’s squad, ranked one spot behind top-ranked Crean (17-7, 6-2) to the No. 1 seeding in the upcoming CIF Southern Section Division 6 playoffs.

By virtually forcing Crean Lutheran Coach Jake Haney to take the ball from a reluctant, but spent Tomlinson four outs shy of a win that might have helped the Saints wrestle a share of the league crown from the Lightning, Sage paved a much-less-difficult road to victory.

Tait put an exclamation on Tomlinson’s exit by ripping McCoy’s more modest fastball for his second hit in four at-bats, to account for 40% of the Lightning’s five hits.

“We knew how good Tomlinson is and that he is committed to Brown [University],” Tait said. “We knew if we wanted to win, we were going to have to bring it. When they pulled [Tomlinson], I knew how big of a change in velocity [McCoy] was going to be, so I just tried to slow everything down and stay within myself. I would say this memory tops last year’s [12-0 league season] as my favorite. I think I may look back at this as my favorite game in high school.”

Sage Hill junior Brett Super, who blanked the Saints on three hits on Tuesday to improve to 9-0, started the sixth inning after Tait’s game-winning hit in the top of the frame. Super surrendered one hit, then collected six straight outs to post his only save of the season and spark a celebratory postgame dog pile.

Sage freshman leadoff man Edward Pelc was another hero. He doubled and scored the winning run in the sixth and worked walks in the first two innings, scoring both times, to help Tomlinson amass 54 pitches in the first two frames alone.

Pelc opened the scoring after stealing a base and motoring to third when the throw from the catcher went into center field. He came home, when Connor Hatz’s two-out groundball to shortstop was booted for the second of Crean’s three errors.

With two outs in the Sage second, senior Jack Pelc and his younger brother both walked and advanced on a wild pitch.

Tait, whom Campeau said has been feverishly working recently to regain his strong hitting form from early in the season, then whacked a 3-2 Tomlinson pitch over the right fielder’s head to give the visitors, who had not allowed more than three runs in any victory before Friday, a 3-0 edge.

But a collision in the outfield that led to a dropped fly ball, as well as a three-run double by Will Choi, helped Crean pull even with a three-run third inning.

A pair of singles, a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly gave the hosts, who entered Friday 7-0 at home, a 4-3 advantage in the fourth.

Connor Beck, one of only three Sage seniors, doubled and walked, while junior Jack Pelc singled and walked as Tomlinson issued six bases on balls.

The Lightning started four freshmen and a sophomore Friday, while Crean’s lineup included nine upperclassmen.

“We changed our approach after the third inning to make sure we took more pitches,” Campeau said. “We usually don’t strike out much and we’re annoying for a lot of teams because we battle and foul off pitches with two strikes. That really helped us today.”

Said Haney: “[The Lightning] did a really good job of competing and extending at-bats. There were times when [Sage hitters] were overmatched, but they hung in and hung in and hung in and the pitch count got up there. [Tomlinson] didn’t want to come out when he did. I just took the ball out of his glove.”

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Academy League

Sage Hill 5, Crean Lutheran 4

SCORE BY INNINGS

Sage 120 002 0 – 5 5 1

Crean 031 000 0 – 4 7 3

Chona, Super (6) and Bush; Tomlinson, McCoy (6) and Gaynor. W – Chona, 10-0. L – Tomlinson. Sv – Super (1). 2B – Tait (SH), Choi (CL), Wu (CL), Bock (SH), E. Pelc (SH).