Sacred Heart Prep baseball finds its groove, beats Menlo School

by Glenn Reeves/Palo Alto Online Sports
The Gators picked up their first PAL victory of the season, defeating Menlo 9-3 on Wednesday. The two rivals will play again on Friday at Menlo. 

The Sacred Heart Prep baseball team finally broke out.

The Gators went into Wednesday’s game with next-door rival Menlo School with a .202 team batting average. They’d let some good pitching go to waste.

Trailing 3-2 going into the fifth inning against Menlo, they exploded for seven runs and held on for a 9-3 Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division victory.

“Much needed,’’ SHP coach Tony Granato said. “We had a good battle Saturday against Aragon and came out with a win. That helped us get off the schneid.’’

Yianni Gardner started the fifth-inning rally with a one-out single. Reece Lindquist singled to center then Braden Fitzgerald, Teddy Purcell and Will Moldow drew consecutive walks to bring home the tying and go-ahead runs.

At that point Menlo coach Greg Hart was forced to pull starter Justin Nam.

“Justin’s a gamer, a real tough competitor,’’ Hart said. “He got a little tired.’’

Enzo Pollioni laid down a successful safety squeeze and Aidan Macaluso hit a high-chopper to short that went for an infield single and a RBI.

Winning pitcher Parker Isaacson hit a sacrifice fly for the second out but then Ryan Mo drilled a two-run double to cap the seven-run rally.

“It was a matter of grinding through those at-bats, taking quality at-bats,’’ Granato said. 

Sacred Heart Prep (5-5-1, 1-2) took a 2-0 lead in the second, but Menlo (3-3, 0-1) came right back with three in the top of the third. JC Ng and Nam singled and Ng scored on an opposite-field single by Ian Collins. Then Max Chou drilled a double to deep left-center -- his second double in as many at-bats to the same part of the field -- and two runs scored.

“He has good bat speed and he plays a good left field,’’ Hart said of Chou.

The score remained 3-2 until the Sacred Heart Prep uprising in the fifth.

“We took the lead and gave it up but didn’t get down,’’ Granato said. “I think we learned some lessons from those one-run losses, dagger losses, to use them as character builders rather than character destroyers. The most important thing is don’t stop competing.’’

Menlo went into the game having played half as many games (5) as Sacred Heart Prep (10), due to having a grass field as opposed to the turf at SHP. And the Knights are without two key players -- Kevin Alarcon, who would’ve been the No. 1 starter, out for the season with a broken collarbone suffered in football, and shortstop Sam Weseloh, the projected No. 3 hitter, out with a labrum injury.

“With those two guys we would be real legit,’’ Hart said. “We’re still good without them, but we’ve just got to stop making those little mistakes.’’

The same two teams are back at it Friday with a 4 p.m. game slated for Menlo.

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Sacred Heart Schools Atherton

Sacred Heart Schools, Atherton

150 Valparaiso Ave
Atherton, CA 94027
650 322 1866
Founded by the Society of the Sacred Heart, SHS is a Catholic, independent, co-ed day school for students in preschool through grade 12