<\/p>\n
At the end of a long ride up the 101, the Millikan Rams found themselves staring into a mirror\u2014the reflection was the Oxnard Yellowjackets, a scrappy team with a dominant pitcher, who have struggled to get runs across this year. <\/span>After eight innings of dueling pitchers, the Yellowjackets came up on top, knocking Millikan out of the playoffs with a 2-0 win.<\/p>\n Credit Oxnard’s sophomore leftie Jayson Balades, who you can bet you’ll hear more about in the next two years. <\/span>Spotting his fastball, Balades struck out 11 batters in a complete-game, two-hit effort. <\/span>“He was dominant,” said Millikan coach Scott Glasser. <\/span>“Maybe the toughest pitcher we’ve faced all year.” A few errors by Oxnard opened the door, but Millikan couldn’t quite string enough offense together to get it done\u2014senior Josh Frye threw another gem, going the distance and giving up 6 hits, striking out 6. <\/span>“He was great,” said Glasser. <\/span>“He wasn’t in trouble all game.” <\/span>Until, that is, the bottom of the eighth, when the leadoff batter hit a single, and then Oxnard’s leading hitter Austin Davidson went yard to end the game. “It’s always disappointing to lose a game you feel like you can win,” said Glasser. <\/span>“But I’m proud of these guy\u2014I always am. <\/span>Every one of them got better and worked hard, and that’s what it’s all about.” <\/span>In their third straight year making the playoffs, Glasser said, “We got a lot of support from the parents, the players, the seniors, our assistant coaches\u2026that’s what makes Millikan baseball so special.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Rams ran into a slightly better version of themselves on Thursday and went down 2-0 in extra innings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}