Another dominant pitching performance from Caden Hodina led San Marcos into the semifinals of the CIF SoCal Baseball D3 Championships with a 6-0 shutout over Cabrillo Tuesday.
“He’s a hell of a ballplayer and we’re going to miss him,” San Marcos head coach Wes Ghan Gibson said. “We’re just enjoying every second that we get to continue to have him. The way he commands the mound, the way he just is relentless up there, strike thrower, just really proud of him.”
Gibson praised Hodina for keeping the Cabrillo hitters off-balance en route to picking up eight strikeouts in six innings, while giving up four baserunners. Erik Perez pitched the seventh inning for San Marcos.
The Royals will play host on Thursday to a familiar foe, Westlake, in a rematch of the CIF-SS Division 3 semifinals won by San Marcos 2-0.
Against Cabrillo, the Royals turned around the hitting from their previous game, an 11-1 loss on May 20 to Aliso Niguel in the CIF-SS D3 final, this time coming through in the game with runners in scoring position.
Owen Estabrook broke through in the bottom of the third inning, hitting a laser to left field, putting pressure on Cabrillo’s starter Gage Mattis, who entered the game with a sub-1 ERA on the season.
“You stick with what your plan is going to be, in control, and I tip my cap, the first two innings he was lights out,” Gibson said of Mattis.
“We were trying to figure out what he was doing. Then we were able to put a little bit of pressure on him and we strung some good at-bats together and that’s what that’s what winning baseball is all about.”
The Royals were able to gain another two runs in the fourth inning with a well-placed bunt single by Darren Orlando. With the bases juiced, Brad Cekada came up and ripped a 2-RBI single to extend the Royals lead to 5-0.
“My coach told me a lot, just to learn how to move forward and just keep playing the game and just have fun with it,” said Cekada.
Steven Bradley came through for the Royals final run in the fifth inning, picking up an RBI on his second hit of the game, scoring Estabrook, who also had a two-hit game.
Dayne Dreste produced a knock and a 1.000 on base percentage getting the starting nod at second base.
“He hasn’t got his name called a lot this year, but he’s continued to be a good teammate,” Gibson said. “He’s continuing to be ready. He’s using our bat first bat off the bench, and he got the nod today at second when we needed every bit of him.”
The Royals played a clean game, committing zero errors while executing the hit-and-run and swiping two bases.
“We like to swing the bat, but when it’s time to execute, time to play the game a little bit, you got to be able to do it,” said Gibson. “Especially in the playoffs, especially in a state tournament and especially against these good teams.”