By Vincent Liu
Town Crier Correspondent
Eric Davis, dropped to ninth in the batting order to soothe his hitting slump, snapped out of his doldrums in a grand fashion last Thursday.
The sophomore belted a grand slam to lead Mountain View High to a 7-2 victory over rival Los Altos in a SCVAL El Camino Division baseball game.
“I was having trouble with the breaking pitches,” said Davis, still trying to catch his breath after the game, “so the coaches moved me down to let me see more fastballs.”
He saw one of these fastballs so well that he ripped it 345 feet over the left-center fence for his first-ever high school home run.
As Davis was greeted at the home plate by the entire team, no one was more appreciative of his feat than teammate Tristan Shuman, the Spartans’ starting pitcher. Given a six-run cushion at the time, the right-hander was tough in the clutch, scattering eight hits and striking out nine in a route-going performance.
Shuman had his fastball humming while keeping the opposing batters off balance with an occasional curve ball for strikes. He got stronger toward the end and finished the game with a flourish by striking out the final two batters.
Mountain View pushed its lead to 7-0 in the top of the fifth with a solo home run by left-handed catcher Todd Frassetti.
Los Altos finally got on the board in the bottom of the inning. The first three batters hit safely and scored two runs.
However, any chance of a major comeback was squashed by Shuman, who struck out the next two batters and retired the side without further damage.
For the Eagles, it was a case of weak clutch hitting that frustrated them the whole game. They stranded two base runners in the second, third and fourth innings and left a total of 10 men on base for the game.
“Those called third strikes with runners in scoring positions really hurt us,” Los Altos coach Sandy Wihtol said.
Two moves by Wihtol misfired. With his team down two runs in the third inning and a runner on first with no outs, he signaled Thomas Roux, leading the team with a batting average over .600, to lay down a bunt. Roux was easily thrown out by the pitcher and the scoring threat died when runners were later stranded at second and third.
The coach later defended his move, saying Roux was bunting for a hit to take advantage of the Spartans’ third baseman playing back.
However, his move one inning later turned out to be more painful.
With two Spartans on and one out, Wihtol replaced starter David Martinez with Devin Schroeder, who pitched five innings three days earlier. A seemingly tired Schroeder, with his warm-up pitches all sailing high, walked the first batter he faced to load the bases. He grooved an inside fastball to the next batter, Davis, who promptly cleared the bases to put the Eagles in a 6-0 hole.
After Schroeder gave up another hit, Matt Nippes relieved him and pitched 3 2/3 innings of one-hit ball.
It was one pitcher too late for Los Altos, which saw its modest two-game winning streak snapped and its division record evened at 3-3.
Outside of the two home runs, Mountain View’s attack was paced by leadoff hitter Kevin Hsu, who had three hits and scored twice. The speedy senior continued to set the table by legging out two infield hits and stretching a single into a double.
“Kevin moves so well down the line that if an infielder has to move to get to a grounder, he’d probably beat it out,” said Spartans coach Craig Walsh, who also noted Hsu has five multiple-hit games and is batting close to .500.
The win improved the Spartans’ El Camino Division record to 4-1 and solidified their hold on second place behind Palo Alto.
