Trojans bats fall silent as the Mustangs took advantage with runners on

The Trojans’ bad luck on the road would continue against The Meadows High School last Wednesday as the team arrived 25 minutes late to campus for warm-ups.

Leaving the boys with limited stretch time, Trojans starting pitcher Dominik Wilson felt the brunt of being rushed through pre-game warm-ups as the normally dominant junior was only able pitch one full frame before giving up four earned runs on four hits.

The Mustangs wasted no time getting on board in the bottom of the first as Hudson Falb and Aiden Brown both grounded hard RBI singles to opposite sides of the infield. Following their 2-0 lead, senior Connor McGill hit a moonshot off the Mustangs scoreboard in dead center, extending their lead to 4-0.

In what most fans would call a rather explosive offense, the Trojans (18-7-1, 5-1) bats fell silent as the team only recorded 3 hits in 5 innings.

Carson Rinetti was on cruise control on the bump for the Mustangs, recording 10 strikeouts and only giving up one earned run through five innings.

Mixing a good slider with a dominant fastball, the junior had the Trojans hitters out in front or frozen nearly every at-bat.

Kayne Horibe, through two innings in relief work, pitched the second and third innings. In his time on the bump, the junior was only allowed to go two innings to not give the Mustangs too much of a look of him for the playoffs.

Horibe’s fastball allowed him to record five strikeouts while surrendering three earned runs and three walks.

A walk and back-to-back hit by pitches allowed Falb to come back up to the plate and send a grand slam over the left field fence to extend the Mustangs’ lead to 9-0.

The Trojans’ Tony Whitney was called in for the mop job as the junior in an inning gave up four hits and three earned runs while picking up two strikeouts.

Scoring their only run of the contest in the top of the fifth inning, Logan Donnelly grounded into a fielders’ choice to score Horibe.

Following the game, coach Roy Uyeno’s message to the boys was very clear. “We have to play cleaner baseball, guys. We just can’t keep giving extra outs away,” Uyeno said.

Contact Jacob Powers at jpowers@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jaypowers__ on X.