Champion Griffins finish with win, await playoff seeding

2016 GROSSMONT COLLEGE BASEBALL

By Chris Davis
© East County Sports.com
EL CAJON (4-30-16) — Talk about wrapping up the regular season in style.  For the third consecutive game, every single Grossmont College starter had at least one hit in their 10-1 victory over Mt. San Jacinto Eagles at Noel Mickelsen Field on Friday (April 29).

DONAVON McCRYSTAL (8-0, West Hills) pulled even with teammate ALAN STRONG (Santana) with a team-high eight wins and only one win off the pace in the Pacific Coast Athletic Confernce.  McCrystal went six innings scattering eight hits and a pair of walks.  Three Griffin (27-9, 19-5 PCAC) pitchers closed out the game with three scoreless innings.

CABOT VAN TIL (Patrick Henry) and JUSTEN BURKEY (San Pasqual) led the Griffin hitting attack with three hits.  TRAVOR BEARD (San Clemente) had a game high three RBI’s.

Van Til led the game off with a single to left field.  Three batters later, NOAH STROHL (La Jolla) was hit by a pitch for the 10th time this season.  That moved Van Til to second.  Beard then singled to right field moving Strohl to third and scoring Van Til for a 1-0 lead.

Mt. San Jacinto (20-16, 15-9 PCAC) scored their lone run in the top of the second inning.

In the bottom of the same inning, Burkey singled up the middle to get the engine rolling.  Two batters later, Van Til reached on a base hit to left and ended up on third after a throwing error by the left fielder.  Burkey came around and scored on the throwing blunder.  It could have been more, as TANNER PERRY (Steele Canyon) hit a base hit to left field.  However, it was so close to being caught that Van Til could not score.  Perry ended up stealing second.  Van Til was gunned down at home on a fielder’s choice.

One inning later, with two outs, ANDRES RIOS (Mater Dei, San Diego) doubled to right center field.  Burkey completed the double-double with a double to right field, scoring Rios.  MICHAEL DIFFLEY (Granite Hills) singled to center scoring Burkey for a 4-1 lead.

It was in the fourth inning that the Griffins blew the game open.  Van Til singled to right center to lead the inning off.  Perry doubled to left center scoring Van Til.  ROBERT BOSTEDT (Granite Hills) singled to left center moving Perry to third.  Strohl singled to left ushering in Perry to score and Bostedt to second.  Beard singled up the middle moving Strohl to second and driving in Bostedt.  Mitchell chose left field for his single that brought in Strohl and moving Beard to second.  After an out, Burkey singled to left to load the bases up.  Van Til reached on an error by the second baseman.  That boo-boo by the second baseman allowed all the runners to move up a base, scoring Beard.  When the dust settled, 11 batters went to the plate for the Griffins and turned a close 4-1 game into a 9-1 blowout.

For good measure, the PCAC Champions added another run in the bottom of the fifth.

Grossmont will now have to wait until Sunday (May 1) to find out where they are officially seeded in the CCCAA Southern California playoffs.  Early projections have the Griffins either a four or five seed.  No matter what happens on Sunday, the Griffins are guaranteed to host a best-of-three Regional round next Friday (May 6) and Saturday (May 7).  The only question is who they will face.  Again projections show the possible match ups would either be El Camino (24-12, 13-8, 3rd place South Coast) or Cerritos (23-13, 15-6, 2nd place South Coast).

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