Arcadia Can’t Be Stopped, Won’t Be Stopped
By Aaron Valdez
The dream season lives on as Arcadia baseball picked up its most significant win of the season, downing fellow San Gabriel Valley powerhouse San Dimas 4-3 in the Babe Herman Tournament Final on Saturday.
Just one day prior to claiming the tournament title, the Apaches etched themselves in the history books as they broke the school’s record for most consecutive wins with 20. The notable victory came in an 18-0 dismantling of Hoover behind a four-RBI outing from junior Dominick Tello.
Having already beaten San Dimas back in March, the Apaches were feeling confident they could further cement themselves as San Gabriel Valley’s top team in this highly anticipated tournament final. However, San Dimas was no slouch being that the Saints were also on a 20-game win streak heading into the match-up.
Fittingly, the game between the top two sides in Division 3 baseball lived up to expectations as they put on a real nail-biter to determine which team was the most dominant.
In the second frame, the Saints had a big opportunity to put the game away early but were only able to bring in one run for a slim lead. The Apaches responded with a haymaker in their half of the inning with to take a 3-1 lead.
However, Arcadia wouldn’t score again until extra innings while San Dimas clawed its way back to even the game at the end of seven. In that decisive eight inning, it was senior pitcher Chase Pedersen who managed to deliver at the plate and on the mound.
Along with relieving Chris Wilson in the third inning, Pedersen hit the game-winning sacrifice fly to bring in Andrew Scannel.
With the win, the Apaches have climbed even higher in several national polls, including No. 13 in Baseball America’s Top 25, No. 7 in Prep Baseball Report’s California Power 25 and No. 1 in Los Angeles Times’ high school baseball rankings.