SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO — Stellar pitching has been the calling card for the San Juan Hills baseball team and it was on display Thursday against Trabuco Hills.
Anthony Rasic, Cameron Morrissey and Alex Landie combined to shut out Trabuco Hills 1-0 in a nonleague game.
San Juan Hills’ pitching staff has held opponents to two runs or fewer in 10 games this season.
“They looked really good today against a good Trabuco Hills team who has been scoring a bunch of runs all year,” San Juan Hills coach Bret LeVier said. “As we get into the last few weeks of the season, we are going to have to rely on our bullpen and it was good to see those guys have success today.”
Rasic started the game and allowed three hits in four innings. Morrissey had two strikeouts in two innings of work and Landie stranded a runner on third in the seventh to get the save.
In a game where the bats were quiet, San Juan Hills (13-8) got a clutch hit when needed and Trabuco Hills (15-6-1) struggled to get hits with runners in scoring position.
Cash Meyer led off the third inning with a single for San Juan Hills and advanced to second base on a throwing error. After a sacrifice bunt, Tanner Kessler hit a run-scoring single for the lone run of the game.
“He does such a good job at the top of the order for us,” LeVier said of Kessler. “Hit after hit he squares the ball up and gives us a chance. It was really good to have him come up clutch there.”
Trabuco Hills stranded runners in scoring position in three innings. The Mustangs had runners on second and third in the third inning and Rasic drew a pop fly on a bunt attempt to end the inning.
In the fourth inning, a Trabuco Hills base runner tagged up on a pop fly, but was ruled out for leaving the base early.
The Mustangs had a runner on third base in the seventh inning and Landie drew an infield pop fly to end the game.
“It was really nice to see our pitchers stay composed under pressure and get some big outs,” LeVier said.
Sam Crouse and Josh Fitch pitched well for Trabuco Hills and allowed just four hits. Fitch allowed just one hit in 2⅓ shutout innings of relief.
Both teams are in first place in their respective leagues by a narrow margin. San Juan Hills is in first place in the Sea View League with one more league win than second-place San Clemente.
Trabuco Hills is in first place in the South Coast League standings with one more league win than Aliso Niguel and Tesoro, which are tied for second place. Both those teams play league games Friday and a win would put them even with Trabuco Hills in first place.
“It’s really easy on your bye week for high school kids to take their foot off the gas,” LeVier said. “Hopefully they understand they can have success in those pressure situations and we can build off that for the next two weeks.”
San Juan Hills has a three-game series against Beckman next week and Trabuco Hills has a series against Tesoro.
This is the first season that the teams in those two leagues are playing three-game series in the same week rather than the former method of playing twice in a week followed by a third game at a later date.
“It’s one of those years where anybody can beat anybody,” LeVier said. “Having three games in a week creates a little chaos because it challenges your pitching depth. It’s exhausting and you feel like you need to come up for air a bit. We know the next two weeks are going to be a grind and hopefully we can keep playing well.”
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