You might see this a lot this year, South Hills baseball posing after 3-0 win over Damien in RJ Legacy game pic.twitter.com/J0759kK8yc
— Fred J. Robledo (@SGVNSports) February 17, 2017
By John M. Sherrard
Correspondent
WEST COVINA-The 2016 CIF-Southern Section Division 2 baseball player of the year from South Hills High School was in midseason form in the sixth annual RJ Legacy charity game.
Junior Brandon Dieter struck out 11 batters in his five innings of work as the Huskies shutout Damien, 3-0, Thursday night at Maverick Field in West Covina.
South Hils enters the season ranked seventh natinoally by Baseball America and will compete in Division 1 along with Damien after winning the Division 2 title a year ago.
“Brandon showed who he is and he’s incredible,” South Hills coach Darren Murphy said.
Dieter struck out the first seven batters of the game and allowed only a single by Damien first baseman Andy Garriola. He faced the minimum fifteen batters in the five innings as Garriola was retired on a double play.
“I just spotted a lot of good fast balls,” said Dieter, who was named the game MVP. “I just froze them and kept them on their toes.
“I really have to give it up to (catcher) Daniel (Genna) and the staff for calling a great game and it was just my job to put it there.”
Seniors Karlos Morales, Zach Bromstead and junior Michael Ortega finished up the last two innings on the mound.
“This is the fourth year we’ve been invited to play in this game,” Murphy said.
“It always makes it a little extra special that we get to play in memory of somebody. It sounds like he (RJ) was a super kid and you can tell by the amount of people here that he must have been special.”
The stands were packed and fans were lined up down the right field line.
This is the third win in the last four years for South Hills in the RJ Legacy game.
The play of the night for the Huskies was in the sixth inning at home plate by Genna. After a ball got away from the junior catcher, Spartan base runner John Lopez sprinted for home but Genna dove and tagged him out to preserve the shutout.
Damien junior starting pitcher Joe De Fina held the Huskies to three hits and no runs in his three innings and struck out four batters.
South Hills broke through with a solo run in the fourth inning as Morales came home from third on a Damien throwing error.
The next inning two more runs came across on RBI singles by senior shortstop Jacob Amaya (2 for 3, 2 SB) and senior first baseman Jonathon Dearth, scoring second baseman Nick Lugo and Amaya for the 3-0 lead.