HUNTINGTON BEACH – Santa Margarita’s baseball team finally won a one-run playoff game against Huntington Beach.
The Eagles scored four runs in the top of the sixth inning to tie the score and scored the winning run in the seventh on an RBI single by Chase Marlow to beat Huntington Beach 6–5 on Tuesday in the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs at Huntington Beach High.
Santa Margarita (18-12) will play at Los Alamitos (19-9-2) in the quarterfinals Friday. Los Alamitos beat Orange Lutheran 8-0 on Tuesday.
Final – Santa Margarita 6, Huntington Beach 5. Wild comeback win. pic.twitter.com/scDytZ1zlO
— Steve Fryer (@SteveFryer) May 21, 2025
Huntington Beach (24-5) is No. 1 in this week’s Orange County Top 25 that has Santa Margarita at No. 3.
The Eagles lost to Huntington Beach 3-2 in a Division 1 quarterfinal last year at Huntington Beach. In 2021, Santa Margarita lost to Huntington Beach 1-0 in the Division 1 first round.
It looked like another loss was in store for the Eagles on Tuesday. The Oilers had a 5-1 lead going into the sixth inning.
Santa Margarita scored four runs in the top of the sixth. Gavin Spiridonoff’s single for his team-leading 18th RBI drove in Brody Schumaker for the inning’s first run, Spiridonoff scored on a wild pitch and Warren Gravely IV hit a double to drive in Carter Enoch and Ben Finnegan to tie the game 5-5.
It looked like Marlow had scored in that inning, too, on a wild pitch. When Oilers catcher Trent Grindlinger collected the baseball, someone in the Huntington Beach dugout thought Marlow had missed touching home plate and instructed Grindlinger to step on the plate. When Grindlinger did, the home plate umpire called Marlow out for the inning’s second out.
Marlow got another chance to get an Eagles run on the scoreboard. With one out in the top of the seventh Lucas Owens walked and stole second base. That would prove to be an important stolen base because one out later Marlow’s base hit sent Owens home from second to give Santa Margarita its only lead of the game, 6-5.
Marlow said he felt that he owed it to his teammates to come through in that situation.
“All my guys are always here for me,” he said, “so I’ve got to do it for them.”
Huntington Beach had runners on first and second with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning but could not get the tying run home.
Santa Margarita senior right-hander Brennan Bauer, who pitched a complete game in the Eagles’ 2-0 win over Newport Harbor in the first round, entered the game in the third inning. Bauer gave up four hits, one walk and no earned runs with four strikeouts in 4.1 innings to get the win, the 21st of his career. Last week he got his 20th career win to break the school record that had been established by MLB pitcher Griffin Canning.
Huntington Beach took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Ethan Porter’s sacrifice fly drove in Jayton Greer. The Oilers added a run in the second inning when Jason Dunham tripled and scored on a wild pitch.
Enoch hit a solo home run to left field to make it 2-1. Huntington Beach extended its lead to 3-1 on Cole Clark’s sacrifice fly that sent home Trent Grindlinger.
The Oilers made it 4-1 by scoring twice with the help of two Santa Margarita errors and excellent bunt singles by Trevor Goldnetz and Gravely and a sacrifice fly by Jared Grindlinger.
Jared Grindliner, a sophomore left-handed pitcher, allowed only one hit – the Enoch home run – with six strikeouts in five innings.
He impressed Santa Margarita coach Chris Malec.
“He’s a special arm,” Malec said. “You’re probably going to watch him on TV some day.”
Malec was impressed by his team, too, for rallying to get the win.
“Our guys had the mental fortitude to come back after the mistakes we made early in the ball game,” he said.
The Eagles’ quarterfinal against Los Alamitos will be their third against a Sunset League team in this year’s playoffs. They beat Newport Harbor, the Sunset League’s second-place team, last week, they beat Sunset League champion Huntington Beach on Tuesday and play at Sunset League third-place Los Alamitos on Friday.
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