The Scots dominated the King’s Academy Knights 19-2 on Friday night at Carlmont after losing to the Knights 5-7 two days prior. The difference this time was that the Scots kept their bats hot throughout the game.
“We’re coming together as a team. We’re all doing our job to win games,” said sophomore Michael Nishikawa, one of 12 Scots who got a hit.
Carlmont sophomore Mitchell Giacomini started on the mound. The Knights came out swinging, with their first batter getting a single, then advancing to second. He ultimately scored on a grounder through the infield. The Scots got out of the inning trailing 1-0 behind King’s Academy.
The Scots quickly came back after Caden Stinson, the freshman center fielder, reached base on an error and sophomore Levi Wellman doubled into right field to bring Stinson home. Wellman later came into score, giving the Scots the momentum they needed going into the second inning.
“In the first half this season, our focus hasn’t been very good, but in the last couple of days, I think we’re starting to change that,” Wellman said.
Giacomini shut down the Knights in the second by only giving up one base, on an error, to the four batters he faced.
Carlmont’s bats only got hotter in the second inning. The rally started with sophomore Ben Taylor beating out a grounder to third. Stinson and freshman Nathan Werbinski followed that up with a hit from each of them. With Wellman up to bat and Werbinski on third, he hit another double, scoring Werbinski. The Scots piled on runs, making the score 6-1 going into the third.
King’s Academy led off the third inning with a double into left field. After two groundouts, the Knights got their second and final run of the game on a single to center field.
The bottom of the third inning and top of the fourth inning were scoreless for both teams.
Carlmont sealed their win by scoring 11 runs in the bottom of the fourth inning. The Scots had a combined four hit-by-pitches, four walks, and seven hits in their final at-bats to bring the final score to 19-2.
The run rule for JV baseball states that the game is officially over if the score has a difference of 10 runs after five innings.
The Scots finished the game with a total of 14 hits, while the Knights had five. Giacomini pitched through four innings, giving up three hits, and had one strikeout and one walk. Carlmont had a total of six stolen bases and 17 total bases. The Knights had a combined two stolen bases and six total bases.
“Our mindset was just to play as a team and just try to win,” Giacomini said.
Carlmont turned their previous loss against the Knights into a positive going into the game.
“I think the loss was a great thing for us to give us a little bit of a wake-up call that any team can beat anyone on any given day,” said Coach Jason Marley.
