Tanner Marchant blasted his first varsity home run and Steven Daini pitched four strong innings as Benicia High’s baseball team cruised over host Vallejo, 12-2, in five innings Tuesday.
Benicia scored at least two runs in each of first four innings, giving Daini plenty of early run support.
“You know you’re going to win when we’re putting up runs like that,” Daini said. “I always feel like we’re going to win.”
Jaden Lane stroked a two-run single to center, scoring Jack Bowles and Hudson Bishop for a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Marchant led off the second inning with a deep homer to right field.
“He’s been swinging the bat well,” Benicia manager Jim Bowles said of Marchant. “Historically, our offense gets going toward the end of the year and I can already see signs of that.”
Benicia wasn’t finished after Marchant’s blast. Nate Palmer and Anthony Clyma followed with back-to-back singles, and Bishop ripped a two-run double to make it 5-0. Jason Ramirez tacked on another run with a two-out RBI single. The Panthers sent nine batters to the plate in the third inning and never got a hit, yet they still scored three times thanks to five walks and a hit batter.
Daini retired the first six batters he faced before an error leading off the bottom of the third led to an unearned run. The same thing happened an inning later, with a dropped fly ball leading to another unearned run. Daini had to pitch his way out of a bases-loaded jam in the fourth and seemed frustrated that Vallejo wasn’t going away quietly.
“Nobody likes to give up a run,” said Daini, who scattered three hits and a walk while striking out six to improve to 5-0 on the season. Daini threw first-pitch strikes to 15 of the 18 batters he faced.
“He wanted to throw goose eggs up there every inning,” Bowles said. “Just because they have a big lead, they don’t quit competing. We’re a team of competitors.”
Jack Bowles pitched a perfect fifth inning to close out the Apaches.
Jason Toumbs led off the top of the fourth inning and scored on a fielder’s choice. Clayton Hutcheson scored on a sacrifice fly by Niko Leon Guerrero, and Blake Yarbrough added an RBI single.
It was the eighth straight victory for the Panthers, who improved to 14-2 overall and 8-0 in the Solano County Athletic Conference. Benicia has a one-game lead over Vanden (7-1 SCAC) going into Thursday’s home game against Vallejo.
“Our pitching has been very consistent and that makes things tough on other teams,” Bowles said. “And it makes things easier on our offense because they know they don’t have to carry the load.”
Benicia’s pitching staff has allowed only 58 hits in 104 1/3 innings and has a cumulative earned-run average of 1.27.
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