{"id":1675,"date":"2010-03-25T05:11:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-25T05:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/baseball-poly-s-wilcox-saves-the-day-against-cabrillo\/"},"modified":"2010-03-25T05:11:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-25T05:11:00","slug":"baseball-poly-s-wilcox-saves-the-day-against-cabrillo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/baseball-poly-s-wilcox-saves-the-day-against-cabrillo","title":{"rendered":"Baseball: Poly’s Wilcox Saves The Day Against Cabrillo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span>Photo of Wilcox warming up by Matt Guardabascio<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s often said that football is a game of inches; despite a valiant performance, Cabrillo ace Ramiro Rosalez learned in the most painful way possible that baseball can be an even more cruel mistress, as Poly’s Jordan Wilcox saved the day for the Rabbits with a seventh-inning homerun to spark a late Poly comeback, giving them the opening day win, 3-1.<\/p>\n

The Jaguars scored in the first inning, in a scrappy series that illustrated how far the Jags have come.  <\/span>Cabrillo’s leadoff man Louie Terrazas singled to start the game, then stole second, only to be caught in a rundown trying to get to third for the second out of the inning.  <\/span>Rather than lose focus, Wesley Madera dug deep and smacked a deep double that looked like it might have been a homerun over the left fence.  <\/span>The next batter, Gerald Taylor, hit a single right up the center, scoring the speedy Madera and giving the Jags a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n

For the next five innings, Rosalez pitched as well as you could ask a pitcher to pitch; he allowed just three hits while striking out six.  <\/span>He stranded Jackrabbit baserunners at the end of each of the first four innings, keeping his cool and maintaining his focus even when Poly had the tying run in scoring position.  <\/span>Jordan Wilcox, on the mound for Poly, did the same.  <\/span>Besides the opening inning, he mowed through the Jags lineup, facing just one batter more than the minimum possible in the second through sixth inning.<\/p>\n

The tension was palpable headed into the top of the seventh, with Cabrillo just three outs from pulling off an opening-day upset.  <\/span>Rosalez got the first batter to fly out, and was just two more away from sealing the complete-game upset.  <\/span>Instead, trying to jam Wilcox inside, he didn’t bring it in quite enough, and Wilcox saw his opportunity, driving the ball over the left field fence for the tying run.  <\/span>“I knew as soon as it hit the bat,” he said after the game.  <\/span>“I actually didn’t even see it go over the fence.”<\/p>\n

With a runner on first due to an error, Jacob Irving (pinch-hitting) hit a single to drive in the winning run, and Daniel Cook brought Irving in for the insurance run.  <\/span>Wilcox faced four Jaguar batters and handled them in the bottom of the seventh to seal the win.  <\/span>The even-keeled pitcher said he was never nervous on the mound, but that he felt the pressure on offense.  <\/span>“When I was at the plate the pressure was tremendous because I knew we needed the win and we haven’t been hitting well.”<\/p>\n

“He may have salvaged our season,” said Poly coach Toby Hess.  <\/span>“That would have been a hard loss to get over.”  <\/span>Praising Wilcox’s composure, Hess said thanks to injury, Wilcox actually got his first recorded at-bats in the game against Cabrillo.  <\/span>“He beat them twice last year, and I thought he’d be perfect for them this year,” said Hess.  <\/span>“I just didn’t know he’d need to hit a seventh-inning homerun.”<\/p>\n

Cabrillo coach Erick Bryant’s team was surprisingly upbeat after the game, and Byrant said it’s because they saw the positive in the game.  <\/span>“It proves that we’re right there knocking at the door,” he said.  <\/span>“But we let that one get away from us.”  <\/span>Reflecting on how close Rosalez was to completing the great work he’d done all game, Bryant just shook his head.  <\/span>“Baseball is a funny game,” he said.<\/p>\n

At 1-0, Poly’s next league game will be Friday at Blair against Millikan; Cabrillo will travel to face 1-0 Compton on Friday.<\/o:p><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Jaguars were just a few inches away from pulling off a huge upset; instead, a seventh-inning homerun by Poly’s pitcher boosted the Rabbits to a comeback win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":16883,"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-1675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675","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=1675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1675"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1675"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}