If it’s Easter week, it’s time for the annual San Diego Lions baseball tournament.
This year’s event, scheduled March 30 to April 2, featured 132 teams scattered across nine divisions. All 11 Grossmont Conference schools participated plus Christian, Foothills Christian, Mountain Empire and Liberty Charter among the region’s smaller high schools.
As usual, early season records have been a hodge-podge. Granite Hills took a 7-3 record into the top-flight Open Division, Grossmont (4-6) and Helix (5-5) in the Classic Division and Monte Vista (6-6), Steele Canyon (2-8), Santana (4-6), El Capitan (4-6-1) and Christian (6-4-1) in the Premier Division. West Hills (0-6) participated in the 4A Division while Valhalla (1-9), Foothills Christian (10-3) and Mountain Empire (4-2) battled in the 2A Division. El Cajon Valley (0-7), Liberty Charter (4-4) and Mt. Miguel (2-9) competed in the Division 1 tier.
Granite Hills is the defending Open Division tournament champion as well as the San Diego Section Open Division champion after defeating Patrick Henry, 3-0, in an exciting matchup at SDSU’s Tony Gwynn Stadium that hung on the balance of a bases-loaded triple by Parker Vance and a 10-strikeout effort by Luke Bailey.
The win also cemented the Eagles in section history as the first Open Division team to complete an undefeated 24-0-2 season prior to the regional playoffs.
Liberty Charter advanced as far as the Division V-AA semifinals while Grossmont captured a play-in game in Division II.
Besides Granite Hills, other section champions included Pt. Loma (Division I), Mt. Carmel (Division II), University City (Division III), Ramona (Division IV), High Tech High San Diego (Division V) and Rock Academy (Division V-AA).
MOVING FORWARD
Freshman Colton Windham made a splash with three hits, including a double and home run, to account for five RBI in Granite Hills’ 9-0 win over the El Camino Real Royals in Monday’s tournament opener. Junior Weston Pace had two hits and two RBI while senior Anthony Miotti had two hits, including a double, and one RBI to help lift the Eagles.
Junior Eurijah Schutza also had one RBI while Miotti and senior Preston Hendry each scored two runs. Miotti, Hendry and freshman Jaden Macias each collected two hits in the game.
Junior Hoss Harper pitched six innings with 14 strikeouts and no hits. Windham led the team through 11 games with a 0.513 hitting average and 14 RBI. Up next on the scoresheet were Mioti at 0.395 with eight RBI and Schutza at 0.390 with eight RBI. Freshman Jesse Maddox followed at 0.300 with eight RBI.
Macias (0.242) had logged eight RBI and one home run while senior Jake Ervin (0.263) had accumulated six RBI and one homer.
Miotti and Hendry each had smacked one round-tripper to start the new season. On the mound, Schutza was 3-0 with a 3.50 ERA and 13 strikeouts in 16 innings while Harper was 3-1 with a 1.18 ERA and 38 strikeouts in 29.2 innings. Junior Brody Vicars was 2-0 with a 1.85 ERA and nine strikeouts in 11.1 frames.
- Senior Trey Crawford slugged two home runs with five RBI to lead Grossmont to a 12-9 win in its tournament opener over McClatchy while three other Foothillers hit home runs: one each by senior Max Tufugafale and juniors Nate McCance and Myles Cata.
Tufugafale finished the game with three RBI while junior Logan Struck and freshman Dominic Guerra each scored three runs.
Tufagafale (0.351) and Crawford (0.353) lead the Hillers with 13 and 12 RBI, respectively.
- Sophomore Jace Sells lead Helix in its tourney opener with a home run and four RBI in a 13-0 win over Vista Grande.
Junior Angel Watkins had a double and three RBI while four Highlanders each knocked in one run: junior Maddox Richardson, sophomore Romero Briones and juniors Kie Smith and Jake Johnson.
Briones pitched a complete game one-hitter with nine strikeouts while issuing just one walk.
- Senior Xander Bennett led Santana over Liberty, 7-2 with two hits and three RBI while sophomore Gregory Ryan logged two RBI and one each for freshman Landon Braaksma and junior Brennen Weed. Sophomore Israel Sanchez pitched 5.1 innings to pick up the win on the hill.
- Four players each collected two RBI in Mt Miguel’s 13-1 win over Alpine’s Liberty Charter: seniors Luis Luna-Ramirez and Mekhi Yancy, junior Diego Soto and sophomore Dimitrio Lujan. Freshman Jayden Sanchez scattered four hits in five innings with six strikeouts to record the run-rule victory as the Matadors out-hit the Lions 11-4.