SUMMERVILLE SENIOR JARED ENGLISH stretches and makes a putout for the Bears in their Mother Lode League title-clinching victory over Argonaut on Friday. AMY ALONZO-ROZAK/UNION DEMOCRAT
It was time to win the Mother Lode League championship.
There was an Argonaut Mustang runner standing on each base. There was nobody out. It was the top of the fourth inning and Summerville was ahead 8-3 on Friday in Tuolumne.
Back on Wednesday, Summerville had won its 11th straight game clinching a share of the MLL title — earning its first baseball banner in 34 years. Bears pitching ace Josh Dunlap had earned a complete-game (five innings) victory over Calaveras, yielding only three hits and three walks.
“We don’t share titles at Summerville,” English had said, matter-of-fact. “We win them. Period. Ourselves. That’s a ‘Bears’ rule.’ ”
So, with the bags full of Mustangs on Friday, Summerville head coach Larry Gold and Bears pitching coach Steve Farrell decided it was time to win the championship, outright.
Dunlap was instructed to take the hill. Dunlap has a 1.22 ERA, a 6-0 record and a filthy curveball.
“As soon as I saw Josh step on the mound and start warming up, I knew this game was over,” said Cruz. “I had a big smile on my face. He’s shut down everybody all year.”
Said English, “I was thinking, ‘OK, we’re gonna be hitting pretty quick.’ I was actually then thinking about my swing. I knew I was up pretty soon.”
“Yes,” said Coach Gold, “we knew Josh would shut them down.”
“Josh has an awesome curveball,” said Farrell, who calls the pitches for Summerville. “Argonaut was having their players take the first pitch and so we figured if Josh could throw a first-pitch strike, we’d be fine. And since we were ahead on the scoreboard, I had Josh throwing an inside curve.”
“Honestly,” said Dunlap, “I wasn’t that nervous. I wasn’t even trying to think too much. I just acted.”
Dunlap aimed his wicked curve at each batters’ hip. For the next three innings, the Mustang batters would either freeze or inch backwards, only to watch that baseball dart back over the plate for a called strike.
The first batter Dunlap faced managed to get enough wood on the ball to fly out and sacrifice a runner in. The next batter hit a ground ball to Gold at shortstop who gave a quick flip over to Logen Foster who then threw a bullet over to English. Quicker than you can say “6-4-3 double play,” the inning was over.
Dunlap retired the side 1-2-3 in the fifth, while Summerville put up four more runs. Dunlap breezed through an easy sixth inning as well. And in the bottom of the frame, after Foster drove home Wade Bentley with an RBI single, Summerville won the game by the 10-run rule, 14-4, and the MLL championship.
Outright.
Dunlap’s overall numbers? 10 batters faced and nine grabbed some bench immediately. He yielded one walk, no hits, no earned runs, struck out two and earned one save — his third of the 2011 season.
The winning pitcher was Joey Brocchini, who upped his record to 6-0. Unfortunately for Summerville, Brocchini took a fast come-backer to his right thigh from Mustang Evan Tomczak in the top of the first. So Brocchini was only able to hurl 2 1/3 innings.
“That was a line-shot, hard come-backer that caught Joey in his drive leg,” said Farrell. “He wanted to keep going, but we could tell he was hurt by the way he couldn’t go full speed down first base when he was at the plate.”
Andrew Freemyer relieved Brocchini and was effective in the third inning, retiring 2-of-3 batters, and Summerville (12-1 MLL) led 8-1 after three innings.
“Andrew Freemyer was doing OK, then unraveled just a bit with a few (fourth-inning) walks and two cheap hits,” explained Coach Gold.
And then Dunlap was summoned to extinguish the fire.
“My curve was feeling pretty dirty today,” said Dunlap. “I was throwing that inside curveball a lot and it kept working.”
“Josh basically just buckled their hitters,” said Farrell. “If his inside curve is working, it’s lights out. Coming from Josh, it is an un-hittable pitch if it’s on the inside.”
“That’s Josh. He’s a bulldog,” said Coach Gold. “He has that nasty breaking pitch and it’s ... take a seat.”
On offense, Dunlap was 3-for-3 with a double and two RBIs. Taylor Gold was 2-for-3 with a triple and an RBI, English had a 2-RBI double, Cruz was 2-for-4 with an RBI, JonAngelo Perry was 2-for-2 with three RBIs, Foster 2-for-2 with two RBIs, Bentley 1-for-2, and AJ Sooter had a sacrifice fly RBI.
Summerville cranked out 13 hits total, Argonaut just three.
The Bears have two more regular-season games left, both this week, and in each, says Coach Gold, “We’ll be looking at some fresh arms. We’ve relied so much on Josh. And now we want to rest Josh and Joey a bit. Let’s see who else is ready.”
The playoffs start on May 18 in Lodi.
“I think we have a good chance to go pretty deep in the playoffs,” said Coach Gold. “But today was a day our kids got to celebrate and enjoy — and they sure deserved it.”
Post-game, Gold called on Summerville custodian John Hard, who played first base on the Bears last baseball championship team in 1977, to address the 2011 Bears.
“It was a great honor for us to have John Hard speak,” said Dunlap. “We like him and respect him so much.”
Then Dunlap and Taylor Gold were each handed a bottle of apple cider, each shook a bottle wildly and then doused their teammates in bubbles.
“After Wednesday, there still could have, potentially, been a tie for the title,” said Dunlap. “We didn’t want to share something as special as this. We knew we had to come out on this field here today and show the Mother Lode League that we’re the real deal.”
They showed ‘em. 14-4. 12 straight MLL wins. They showed ‘em.
