A perfect sunny evening on Thursday, February 22 marked the start of the baseball season at Ayala. The Rancho Cucamonga Cougars and their 2-2 record came into the game riding a two-game losing streak, their most recent coming against Ramona on February 17.

Ayala’s start to the season had not gone according to plan in tournament play, going 1-2 before their matchup against Rancho. With senior (and ace) Matthew Yarc on the mound, there were high hopes that they could get back home with a win and a fresh .500 record.

Yarc started off the game by catching junior Brock Foulds looking at a curveball at the knees; a good start. After a close ball four call and a soft single, however, Yarc locked back in and struck out his last two hitters looking to end the inning. Ayala went down quick in the bottom half, managing to get a runner on from a hit-by-pitch but only before that same runner got caught stealing.

The second inning was when Yarc had his trouble. A leadoff double put Rancho in a position to score instantly, while a walk and another double gave Rancho the lead with runners on second and third. Unfortunately, Yarc’s hands must have started stinging from all the paper cut singles that were falling in. Another run scored to set the score at 2-0 before a flyout, one that seemed like it would plate another run, caused the runner at third to tag early and end the inning with a 7-5 double play.

Despite Yarc racking up four strikeouts in two innings, his pitch count in the second inning put a damper on his outing and got him taken out after two hard-earned innings. Junior Isaac Huver took over for an inning, allowing a run on two hits, and handing the ball off to sophomore Caleb Trugman who started the game at third base.

Trugman battled through four innings of scoreless ball on four strikeouts, giving his offense the rest of the game to get back in it. However, it wasn’t until the bottom of the sixth when Ayala was able to put something together. Despite the half inning starting with two strikeouts, junior Aiden Erlandsen turned on a fastball to right field to put himself on first base and, wouldn’t you know it, bring Trugman back up to the plate. Working a 1-1 count, Trugman took a changeup to deep left field that carried, and carried, and carried… and left the yard over the left field fence to cut the deficit to 3-2.

One of his four scoreless innings in the game came in the top of the seventh to bring his offense back up to hit with only a one-run deficit. Despite sophomore Eric Hernandez singling to center to lead off the inning, getting caught stealing was the momentum shifter that Ayala didn’t need, now with only two outs to spare. Senior Andrew Torres lined out to center, and senior Bryan Yang struck out looking to end the game.

Ayala will look ahead to their game against Arcadia to get back in the win column on 2/24. Now with a record of 1-3, their path back to .500 (or better) got a little harder, but nothing we can put past the always-dependable varsity baseball team.