With the beginning of a new Spring season, Ayala baseball set the season tone early by crushing the Damien High School Spartans 8-3, despite the lack of home-field advantage that secured an early 3-1 season start.
Our baseball team begins this season fresh off a grand 19-9 season finish, bringing home another Palomares League title for Ayala’s sports history as they attempt with hopes to replicate the same as last year.
Damien begins this season with the opposite of how they finished, with a mediocre 14-14 record that earned them the fifth out of six spot in the Baseline league, just ahead of Upland’s underperforming season of 5-22.
Despite the past, both teams went into the match knowing they had the chance to beat the other, but Damien’s hopes started to quickly subside with Ayala scoring two runs in just the first inning. Damien did not make an equal effort as they were shut out in the first four innings with Damien feeling deja-vu in the fourth inning as their last remaining hopes began to dwindle with Ayala having yet another 2-0 inning. Jaden Venezuela (12) was a key piece of the onslaught as he hit his first home-run of his senior season, Ayala’s third this season so far. Adding to that, Venezuela had three runs and two Runs Batted in (RBI).
Damien scored the first run of the game in the 5th inning, matching Ayala’s one-run inning, making the game a diminishing outlook of 5-1. Damien kept up with Ayala in the remaining innings, scoring a run in the last three but Ayala did not have any intentions of slowing down that simultaneously effectively killed any chance of a late Spartans comeback. Ayala capitalized with another two score-inning in the seventh, ending the slaughter 8-3. Damien’s Ryan Gonzalez was the Spartan’s Talisman with his one run, one RBI, and two hits where one of those were a double.
With Ayala exhibiting signs of yet another promising season with another victory against San Dimas High School right afterwards, they look forward to their contest against the Centennial Huskies on March 12.
