West Ranch baseball has had a rich history of success in its 20-year tenure. Junior Mikey Murr etched himself into that history on Friday when he became the first Wildcat to hit for the cycle in program history.
West Ranch won the Foothill League battle over the visiting Saugus Centurions, 9-2, behind five RBI from the hit-machine Murr.
“It’s super special but we started off the game off not super hot,” Murr said. “I think our energy was really low, but I told the guys I’m gonna get us started. And I think I did just that. Then our whole team came together in the end and we were able to take the win.”
Murr completed the cycle the same way he started, with an early attack. The junior singled on the first pitch he saw on Friday and launched out the first pitch of his final at-bat past right field, clinching the feat, in order, against three different Centurion pitchers.
“I went up there and I was looking to drive something,” Murr said. “I had two runners on and there’s a big game needed to get the win so I wanted to play some pressure and I got a pitch to drive and I drove it … I saw a fastball and I crushed it.”
Despite the score, West Ranch (12-2-1, 6-0) didn’t coast to an easy victory. Saugus (5-10, 3-3) came out with a ton of energy early on in the game and built up a 2-0 lead by the third inning.
However, once the Wildcats reached their third trip through the order, the bats caught fire.
Murr brought in the go-ahead run in the fifth off an RBI triple. The junior’s hit was the first of five straight hits to put the Wildcats up big.
Junior Ryan Oh smacked out his second double of the day in the run and was brought in on a pinch-hit RBI double from Jake Vojtech.
Oh, Aidan Buntich and Miles Topping all added two-hit days for West Ranch while Stanford commit Nolan Stoll finished the day 3-for-4 with a double.
“This offense, it’s special,” Murr said. “Especially when everyone’s on. It’s super special.”
After giving up a pair of early runs, Wildcats starting pitcher Hunter Manning locked in and went 11-straight at-bats before giving up a hit in the sixth.
Manning showed no signs of fatigue after sitting in the dugout for the long five-run fifth-inning rally.
“Even though they scored a couple runs early and we were down, nobody ever lost faith in what (Manning) does,” said West Ranch coach Ryan Lindgreen. “He always wants the ball and he’s always ready to go give whatever he has that day and give you all of what he has.”
The junior pitcher finished the game with two runs, five hits and six strikeouts. Senior pitcher Ricky Sturm came in to close the game and earned the final three outs for West Ranch, completing the sweep over Saugus and winning the Wildcats’ eighth-straight game.
As for the Centurion pitching, senior Wesley Yim started well on the mound, keeping the Wildcats scoreless through three innings. However, even a few pitching changes couldn’t cool down Murr and the Wildcat bats through their third trip through the order.
The Centurions struck first and have improved immensely at the plate after their 0-7 start to the season. Junior Kaden Haag brought in the first run of the day on a sacrifice fly before a pair of wild pitches got Saugus leadoff hitter Dominick Zambrano from second to home.
Zambrano led Saugus at the plate, going 2-for-4 with a double and triple.
The Cents could’ve gotten into a lot more trouble on defense if not for catcher Jason Zepeda, who made several key plays to force putouts. Zepeda caught a sky-high foul ball at the home plate wall, made a nice tag at the plate and threw a perfect ball to Haag at third base to catch West Ranch in a double steal.
While the bats and defense are improving, coach Carl Grissom still needs more hits to get the Centurions back into playoff contention.
“We had some opportunities there and we kind of didn’t get that big hit and that’s been our season,” Grissom said. “We’re a very good team, but we have to start hitting. We need some key hits. We have a lot of strikeouts and now it’s not like we don’t work on it but it’s just not coming through right now. Tomorrow’s a new day. Hopefully tomorrow will be the start of it. And then we have another big week next week.”
West Ranch and Hart remain the last two undefeated teams in the Foothill League. Lindgreen is pleased with his team’s perfect run through the first half of league play but knows plenty of tests lie ahead.
“The start to league has been wonderful but I mean it’s just halfway through, so there’s nothing really to be too excited about,” Lindgreen said. “There’s a lot of big tests ahead of us and it’s a long road to get through the league season. Even though it feels good now there’s a lot of things that we need to improve upon.”
Saugus will look to be the first to crack the Indians’ armor in next week’s league series with Hart.
The Cats will look to get their win streak into double digits next week as the team prepares for its Valencia series.
The Vikings and Wildcats have split games in each of the past two seasons as both programs especially look forward to this Foothill League series.
Games will be moved to Tuesday and Thursday for Good Friday this week as Valencia welcomes West Ranch while Saugus heads to Hart on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m.
“Next week, we have Valencia and we know that those games are always big-time games for both programs,” Lindgreen said. “We expect them to do everything they can to give us their best shot and we’ll do everything we can to give them our best shot. I think it’ll be some really good baseball.”
