Pasadena knocks out Montebello 7-4

The Pasadena High baseball team overcame a two-run deficit with a three-run fourth inning and went on to beat visiting Montebello High, 7-4, on Friday in a nonleague game.
Trailing, 3-1, the Bulldogs led off the bottom of the fourth with three singles and a double, which gave Pasadena a 4-3 lead going into the bottom of the seventh.
Now leading, 5-3, designated hitter Niko Lopez hit a 0-1 fastball off Montebello starter Richard Aparicio over the left field fence for a two-run home run to put the game out of reach for the Bulldogs.
“I was just looking for a fastball, just looking for something to get (teammate Andrew Lathouwers) in,” Lopez said. “But that worked.”
Pasadena coach Mike Parisi was very thrilled with Lopez’ big hit.
“Niko had a big, big clutch home run to give us that seventh run, because we need every run we could get because these guys are going to quit,” he said.
Parisi was also proud of the team’s pitching staff.
“Trent Buchanan was his first start and I thought he did alright for his first start,” Parisi said. “Nick Mostacero came in and did a nice job to get his second win. And Frankie Garriola did what he had to do to get his third save. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pretty. But he did what he had to do and made that pitch to get the double play at the end.”
In getting the win and improving his record to 2-0, Mostacero threw 1 2/3 scoreless innings, allowing just one hit.
Aparicio took the loss to fall to 1-2. He pitched five innings, allowing four runs on six hits, while striking out five and walking one,
Parisi added he knew the Bulldogs were running into some very stiff competition in Montebello as both teams entered the game with 3-1 records.
“I knew this game wasn’t going to be easy,” he said. “Montebello has a good program and they’re well coached. We need to come out, but I thought we came out flat a little early. But we did a really nice job responding. We need to know how to respond when we have bad innings. They had a 3-1 lead and we did a good job responding to take the lead, 4-3.”
Montebello coach Manny Arana said he felt his team really hung in there against Pasadena.
“That’s one of the characteristics of our team,” Arana said. “We battle all 21 outs from start to end and it kind of showed today. We were one or two hits away at the end from kind of putting them on their heels. But we hit it hard right at the shortstop at the end and that’s kind of how baseball plays.”
(Shel Segal can be reached at ssegal@beaconmedianews.com. Follow him via Twitter @segallanded.)

More from Featured