In the same breath, Colony High School baseball coach Tom Keller explained why Friday’s game with Chino for first place in the Mt. Baldy League was vitally important and why it wasn’t.
“It’s early, but in the end every game matters,” he said. “We don’t ever approach any game like ‘Hey, it’s OK it’s early.’ But yeah, there’s still a long way to go.”
Colony can be glad it is only four games into league play but Chino can be happy, for obvious reasons, to have come away with a 10-2 victory that vaulted the Cowboys into sole possession of first place in the league whose top two teams are ranked in the top 10 of CIF-SS Division 4.
A season after Chino (9-2, 3-0) lost two of its final four league games — one of which was an 8-3 defeat at Colony — to finish a game behind the Titans in the Cowboys’ first season in the Mt. Baldy League, any victory over Colony (11-4, 3-1) has significance.
“It feels big,” Chino coach Gary Libby said. “It’s early but we have a lot of respect for Colony, so to be able to come in here and play well, it feels big even though there’s a long way to go.”
No. 6 Chino had 14 hits to No. 7 Colony’s six, but the Cowboys didn’t lead the game until Tyler Padron’s two-run double in the fourth inning gave them a short-lived advantage.
Colony answered in the fourth, tying the game with one of its two unearned runs off Chino starter Michael Reina, who allowed zero earned runs on six hits in a complete game. Reina then escaped a bases-loaded jam thanks to the second highlight reel catch of the game by Padron in center field that proved to be the beginning of the end for Colony.
Chino took a one-run lead in the fifth, scored two more in the sixth and slammed the door shut with a five-run seventh.
“We didn’t get off to a real good start but Michael (Reina) was there to throw strikes and keep us in it,” Libby said. “But I was especially impressed with our shortstop Chaneng Varela because a couple of his at-bats really set the tone.”
Varela, who was 3 for 5, gave the Cowboys a 3-2 lead in the fifth inning with an RBI single to short center field, his third hit in as many at-bats.
Colony starting pitcher Aaron Bernal, who allowed three runs on seven hits in five innings, exited facing a one-run deficit but watched the game quickly slip out of reach.
It was Eli Vera the next inning crushing an RBI double to the left field fence to extend the Chino lead before Vera scored on the second of three consecutive singles by left fielder Wade Witherel to make the score 5-2.
Any hope for a Colony comeback was lost when the first three Chino batters of the seventh inning reached base, including one on the Titans’ only error of the game. An errant throw to third on a fielder’s choice scored the runner from second to increase the Chino lead to 7-2. Consecutive two-out singles by Witherel and Evan Aceves set the stage for Reina to put the finishing touches on his gem with a two-run single in the seventh inning that scored the final two runs of the five-run frame.
“I expected it to be a more tightly contested game than it was,” Keller said. “It’s one thing to lose but we got our butts kicked and that’s disappointing. But we need to be resilient and bounce back and realize that whether it’s 3-2 or 10-2 it’s one loss and we need to keep it at that.”
